Sacral Buildings in Slovenia – Seismic Risk Assessment Through Simplified Methodologies

In this paper seismic vulnerability of sacral buildings in seismic prone areas is discussed. In Slovenia there are more than 2900 sacral buildings, for which there is no database of their current condition or vulnerability. On the sample of 64 Slovenian religious buildings (different architectural styles) the use of different simple methods for seismic risk assessment of sacral architecture is demonstrated. The emphasize is on quick and simple methods, which on the basis of the basic data of the asset can provide seismic risk assessment that will serve mainly to identify the most critical buildings. For this purpose, methods of Lourenço (2005) and Lagomarsino (2004) were used. The results of different methods are compared and advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. Following the analysis on sample of 64 buildings it may be concluded that the percentage of buildings at risk in Slovenia may vary between 44% and 89% depending on the method used. Method relying on γ₃ index provide the most conservative results, while the method with γ₁ index provide very optimistic results in comparison to the results of macroseismic methodology provided by RISK-UE. It is also shown that some of conceptually completely different methodologies may provide comparable results. Comparison with the results from non-linear analysis on sample of 15 buildings according to EC8-3 provisions shows that simplified methodology with γ₃ index on average provide the most consistent results.