Seismic vulnerability evaluation of Devil Bridge on Sele River

Object of the present study is the masonry bridge, still standing, built in 1871, by Eng. Fiocca, on Sele River, near Salerno. This bridge has a single semi-elliptic arch, spanning 55.00 m, with a rise of 13.55 m and a width of 5.40 m; in order to reduce the dead loads the inner tympani were lightened employing ring-like vaults. The first step of this research has been the study of the bridge static behaviour, deduced by the material survey of the existing structure, but also analyzing, verifying and enriching matters treated in the Report of Eng. Sacco, a Fiocca’s collaborator, in which all phases of Devil Bridge designing and building are fully described. The second step has been the evaluation of its seismic vulnerability: a three-dimensional finite element model has been implemented in ABAQUS code. To assess the bridge seismic capacity, non-linear pushover analyses have been carried out.