RINTC-E project: Towards the assessment of the seismic risk of existing buildings in Italy

The 2019-2021 RINTC project is the extension of the 2015-2017 RINTC project that assessed, explicitly, the seismic risk of code-conforming Italian structures (i.e., designed according to the seismic code currently enforced). The aim of the new RINTC project is to extend the methodological framework developed in RINTC to the existing structures (designed and built before 2008), which constitute the vast majority of Italian building stock. In 2018 some analyses, preliminary with respect to the 2019-2021 project, were carried out; i.e., the 2018 RINCT-e project. In particular, five structural typologies were considered: masonry, reinforced concrete, pre-cast reinforced concrete, steel, and seismically isolated buildings. In the framework of the 2018 project, several archetype structures for each typology have been designed and/or retrofitted according to standard practices consistent with outdated codes, enforced since the eighties, for five sites across Italy spanning a wide range of seismic hazard levels (evaluated according to current standards). The seismic vulnerability of the designed structures was assessed by subjecting three-dimensional nonlinear computer models to multi-stripe non-linear dynamic analysis. Integration of the probabilistic hazard and probabilistic vulnerability (i.e., fragility) yields the annual failure rate for each of the designed and modeled structure. In the paper, the 2019-2021 RINTC project is introduced and the preliminary failure rates of the existing structures are presented.