Seismic Assessment of Historical Masonry Buildings at Different Scale Levels: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a review paper on the methods of analysis (seismic assessment) for masonry historical buildings that spans from large scale to small scale approaches. The review paper is comprehensive and well written. However, it is missing an explaining set of figures (one for large scale and the other for small scale or more) with examples for all models, similarly to what done in D'Altri and co-workers in Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering 27(4), pp. 1153-1185. This would be extremely interesting for the reader and would improve the quality of the paper in terms of readability and future citations chances. The rest of the paper is conceived in a very good way and the paper is rated as acceptable for publication.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
This is a review paper on the methods of analysis (seismic assessment) for masonry historical buildings that spans from large scale to small scale approaches. The review paper is comprehensive and well written. However, it is missing an explaining set of figures (one for large scale and the other for small scale or more) with examples for all models, similarly to what done in D'Altri and co-workers in Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering 27(4), pp. 1153-1185. This would be extremely interesting for the reader and would improve the quality of the paper in terms of readability and future citations chances.
The rest of the paper is conceived in a very good way and the paper is rated as acceptable for publication.
Answer. According to the Reviewer’s suggestion, in the revised version of the manuscript several images have been added with the aim of making more readable the paper.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The work is dedicated to a huge review of analytical and numerical methods for simulating historical masonry buildings and structures behaviour at different scale levels. In detail a larger, territorial scale is considered, together with a smaller, building one.
The work is interesting and deserves publication in the journal. However, several corrections and modifications are suggested in order to improve its clearness and readability.
The first aspect to be pointed out is the use of 'multi-scale' word in the manuscript title. In structural and computational mechanics and especially in case of masonry structures, the term 'multi-scale' is adopted for defining different levels of detail in the representation of masonry structural elements and material behaviour. Macro-scale is often adopted for buildings or structural elements, micro-scale is often adopted for masonry constituents.
Multi-scale strategies are often able to describe macro-scale behaviour by accounting for micro-scale properties.
Here the terms are adopted in a different manner, as will be highlighted in a subsequent comment. For this reason, it is suggested to modify the title as follows: 'Seismic assessment of historical masonry buildings at different scale levels: a review'
Further comments are listed below:
- lines 8-10: the sentence does not appear to be complete;
- line 18: masonry structures should be the 1st keyword;
- line 47: acronym 'IT' must be explained;
- lines 59-60: in the reviewer's opinion, if historical masonry buildings assessment is the challenge, a 'large-scale approach' can consider the building itself, whereas a 'small-scale approach' should consider building structural elements ('micro-scale' should then consider blocks and mortar joints, for instance, 'urban-scale' can consider aggregated buildings or the whole built environment of a territory);
- line 83: figure 1 seems to be similar to a portion of a figure already proposed by Calvi et al. [58], this contribution should be already cited at the beginning of section 2;
- line 100: among VIM, the contributions by professor Zuccaro and co-workers (at least one of them) should be added;
- line 183: is 'apartment' correct?
- line 353: the detailed mechanical methods are still analytical only or are they also numerical?
- lines 495-496: discrete element method (DEM), frequently adopted for modelling masonry structures (and buildings, in some cases) is completely missing in this work;
- line 508: acronym 'LA', even if it is easy to be understood, must be explained;
- line 513: Being;
- line 520: even if Heyman is mentioned by citing his hypothesis, it must be better emphasized that limit analysis for masonry structures was introduced thanks to his pioneering contributions (namely The Stone Skeleton, The Masonry Arch, and others);
- line 562: when FEM for masonry is introduced and block-by-block modelling is highlighted, authors should also remember the pioneering FEM proposed by Adrian Page;
- lines 586-588: white lines to be removed;
- line 701: why 'FEA'?
- line 778: when authors describe monodimensional models, at the end of the section, authors can also consider the recent one-dimensional rigid beam model proposed by Milani and co-workers for simulating freestanding columns, cantilever walls, and masonry chimneys.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
The work is dedicated to a huge review of analytical and numerical methods for simulating historical masonry buildings and structures behaviour at different scale levels. In detail a larger, territorial scale is considered, together with a smaller, building one.
The work is interesting and deserves publication in the journal. However, several corrections and modifications are suggested in order to improve its clearness and readability.
- The first aspect to be pointed out is the use of 'multi-scale' word in the manuscript title. In structural and computational mechanics and especially in case of masonry structures, the term 'multi-scale' is adopted for defining different levels of detail in the representation of masonry structural elements and material behaviour. Macro-scale is often adopted for buildings or structural elements, micro-scale is often adopted for masonry constituents.
Multi-scale strategies are often able to describe macro-scale behaviour by accounting for micro-scale properties.
Here the terms are adopted in a different manner, as will be highlighted in a subsequent comment. For this reason, it is suggested to modify the title as follows: 'Seismic assessment of historical masonry buildings at different scale levels: a review'
Answer. The Authors would like to thank the Reviewer for this useful suggestion; the title has been modified as suggested.
Further comments are listed below:
- lines 8-10: the sentence does not appear to be complete;
Answer. The observation of the Reviewer is correct, the sentence was not fully clear. The sentence has been then modified to make the paper easier to be read. The modification is marked with red colour in the revised version of the manuscript.
- line 18: masonry structures should be the 1st keyword;
Answer. The list of keywords has been modified as suggested.
- line 47: acronym 'IT' must be explained;
Answer. The acronym has been explained as suggested and marked by red colour in the revised version of the manuscript.
- lines 59-60: in the reviewer's opinion, if historical masonry buildings assessment is the challenge, a 'large-scale approach' can consider the building itself, whereas a 'small-scale approach' should consider building structural elements ('micro-scale' should then consider blocks and mortar joints, for instance, 'urban-scale' can consider aggregated buildings or the whole built environment of a territory);
Answer. With the aim of making clearer the distinction made by the Authors within the manuscripts among the different methods, a modification of the paragraph above-mentioned (and several others small modification of the paragraphs’ titles) has been made. Modifications are marked by red colour in the revised version of the manuscript.
- line 83: figure 1 seems to be similar to a portion of a figure already proposed by Calvi et al. [58], this contribution should be already cited at the beginning of section 2;
Answer. Reference to the work proposed by Calvi et al. [58] has been introduced as suggested by the Reviewer. Therefore, the final update of references’ number has been made.
- line 100: among VIM, the contributions by professor Zuccaro and co-workers (at least one of them) should be added;
Answer. According to Reviewer’s suggestion, the most recent work proposed by Zuccaro et al. (2021) has been introduced in the revised version of the manuscript and in the reference list, therefore updated.
- line 183: is 'apartment' correct?
Answer. ‘Apartment’ has been replaced with ‘flat’; the modification is marked in the revised version of the manuscript with red colour.
- line 353: the detailed mechanical methods are still analytical only or are they also numerical?
Answer. The detailed mechanical methods are almost exclusively analytical. Anyway, to avoid possible inaccuracies, the method’s name has been changed to “mechanical methods”.
- lines 495-496: discrete element method (DEM), frequently adopted for modelling masonry structures (and buildings, in some cases) is completely missing in this work;
Answer. Following the reviewer’s suggestion, a reference to the DEM method has been introduced in chapter 3, despite not being detailly investigated within this paper since their applicability is mainly limited to building portions.
- line 508: acronym 'LA', even if it is easy to be understood, must be explained;
Answer. The acronym has been better explained in the revised version of the manuscript (marked with red colour).
- line 513: Being;
Answer. Correction made.
- line 520: even if Heyman is mentioned by citing his hypothesis, it must be better emphasized that limit analysis for masonry structures was introduced thanks to his pioneering contributions (namely The Stone Skeleton, The Masonry Arch, and others);
Answer. A modification of the text, in the revised version of the manuscript, has been made with the aim of highlighting the relevance of Heyman contribution, adding the two suggested references. The modified text is marked with red colour.
- line 562: when FEM for masonry is introduced and block-by-block modelling is highlighted, authors should also remember the pioneering FEM proposed by Adrian Page;
Answer. Following the Reviewer’s suggestion, an additional reference to the work of Page, A. has been introduced in the revised manuscript and therefore in the reference list.
- lines 586-588: white lines to be removed;
Answer. Correction made.
- line 701: why 'FEA'?
Answer. FEA was used in the original version of the manuscript for ‘Finite Element Analyses’. Being not clear, in the revised version the text has been modified with ‘3.2.2. FE modelling and analysis: strategies applied to cultural heritage’. The modification is marked with red colour.
- line 778: when authors describe monodimensional models, at the end of the section, authors can also consider the recent one-dimensional rigid beam model proposed by Milani and co-workers for simulating freestanding columns, cantilever walls, and masonry chimneys.
Answer. The Authors would like to thank the Reviewer for his useful observation. According to suggestion, a small sentence referring to the model proposed by Milani et al. has been introduced in the revised version of the manuscript, and consequently in the reference list. The modification is marked with red colour in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The work was successfully updated by following reviewer comments.
