Empirical damage and actual repair costs on RC private buildings after L'Aquila earthquake

In the first phase of the emergency management a fter the April 6, 2009, L’Aquila earthquake, field inspections were carried out through the AeDES form , a first level survey form for post -earthquake damage and usability assessment , to evaluate the usability conditions of buildings. Once the damage and usability assessment was complet ed, several Ordinances of the Prime Minister were issued to regulate the procedures and the public grant for the reconstruction of private buildings outside the historical centre of L’Aquila and surrounding municipalities. The public grant was relea sed according to funding requests made by practitioners and checked by a proper commission entrusted by the Government. The data collected on a set of about 1,500 private Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings in terms of usability rating, construction age, n umber of storeys, empirical damage, as well as of Actual Repair Costs (ARCs) are herein discussed and presented. Building Damage Grades ( DG) defined according to the European Macroseismic Scale EMS -98 have been computed based on the damage data collected w ith the AeDES forms . Then, the relation between D G and ARCs , computed according to practitioner s funding requests , is eva luated and discussed . A reasonable relationship between DG and ARCs is found if damage on non -structural components is taken into acco unt. However, the study points out that the DG , defined as a function of the maximum damage detected on a structural or non- structural component s, are not fully suitable to define a reliable correlation with ARCs. To this end, a more refined damage factor accounting for the damage extent on each structural and non- structural component and for the weight of the damage on a single component on the total repair costs of the building is needed.