Thermography Investigation and Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of a Historical Vaulted Masonry Building
, Fabio Longo 2, Daniele Perrone 2, Paola Lassandro 1 and Maria Antonietta Aiello 1,2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In Section 2, description of the building, it would be very useful to provide some photos of the described elements, crack patterns, identified materials.
Line 155 - please substitute "achieved" by "obtained"
Line 269 - please try and rephrase as the message is a bit unclear. I think the authors wanted to state that the wall was actually made of 3 individual walls that were either totally unbonded or at least partially bonded / connected to each other. As a result, they would work individually instead of a single wall 60 cm thick.
Author Response
Comment 1
In Section 2, description of the building, it would be very useful to provide some photos of the described elements, crack patterns, identified materials.
Answer to Comment 1
The Figure 2 in the new version manuscript was added to show clear example of the typical crack pattern find into the building.
Comment 2
Line 155 - please substitute "achieved" by "obtained"
Answer to Comment 2
Substitution done. Thank you.
Comment 3
Line 269 - please try and rephrase as the message is a bit unclear. I think the authors wanted to state that the wall was actually made of 3 individual walls that were either totally unbonded or at least partially bonded / connected to each other. As a result, they would work individually instead of a single wall 60 cm thick.
Answer to Comment 3
Thank you for this valuable suggestion. Sentence was rephrased.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper discusses the results of a large thermography campaign performed in a cultural masonry building located in the south of Italy. The extensive investigation was aimed at identifying the typologies of vaults covered by worth frescos. This peculiarity was considered in the structural analysis to investigate the influence of the vault typology, in terms of plan stiffness versus the global seismic vulnerability. A 3D Finite Element model was developed after collecting detailed information about the building in terms of history, material characterization, and structure composition. Moreover, a parametric analysis was performed by varying both the floor in-plane stiffness and Young’s modulus of the masonry. The experimental outcomes demonstrated that thermography was decisive in improving the level of knowledge and obtaining a more reliable prediction of the seismic response. In summary, the reviewer recommends the authors can clarify the following issues:
- Page 3, in the title of Figure 1, there is a typo (character “c”) in the word “facade.” This is mainly due to the Auto Correct Option in Word. Please revise it.
- Page 4, line 145, f = 25°. What is the unit of this temperature, ℃ or ℉？
- Pages 14 and 15, Figures 21 and 22, all the annotations in these Figures are too vague. Please re-edit it in Microsoft Word/PowerPoint. In this way, all the Figures will have the same resolution.
- Page 15, line 375, where are Figures 23(c) and 23(d). The title of Figure 23 is wrong. Please revise it.
- Page 17, Figure 24, where are Figures 24(c) and 24(d)? Please check.
Finally, the reviewer will give two suggestions for the authors. (1) The resolution is also an essential factor in improving the paper acceptance rate for a high-quality paper. When adding notation (words, numbers) to an original paper, it is better to be edited in Microsoft software (PowerPoint or Word) and group them. Then, please insert it into Microsoft Word. In this way, the resolution of the notation shown on each Figure will have the same resolution as the words in this paper. (2) Please make sure all the words shown in all Tables in this paper have the same font type and size.
Author Response
General Comment:
This paper discusses the results of a large thermography campaign performed in a cultural masonry building located in the south of Italy. The extensive investigation was aimed at identifying the typologies of vaults covered by worth frescos. This peculiarity was considered in the structural analysis to investigate the influence of the vault typology, in terms of plan stiffness versus the global seismic vulnerability. A 3D Finite Element model was developed after collecting detailed information about the building in terms of history, material characterization, and structure composition. Moreover, a parametric analysis was performed by varying both the floor in-plane stiffness and Young’s modulus of the masonry. The experimental outcomes demonstrated that thermography was decisive in improving the level of knowledge and obtaining a more reliable prediction of the seismic response.
In summary, the reviewer recommends the authors can clarify the following issues:
Comment 1
Page 3, in the title of Figure 1, there is a typo (character “c”) in the word “facade.” This is mainly due to the Auto Correct Option in Word. Please revise it.
Answer to Comment 1
Typo corrected. Thank you.
Comment 2
Page 4, line 145, f = 25°. What is the unit of this temperature, ℃ or ℉？
Answer to Comment 2
That value has nothing to do with the temperature, it’s the angle of the camera’s lens.
Comment 3
Pages 14 and 15, Figures 21 and 22, all the annotations in these Figures are too vague. Please re-edit it in Microsoft Word/PowerPoint. In this way, all the Figures will have the same resolution.
Answer to Comment 3
Annotations are not relevant, modal shapes are the scope of the figures.
Comment 4
Page 15, line 375, where are Figures 23(c) and 23(d). The title of Figure 23 is wrong. Please revise it.
Answer to comment 4
Revised. Thank you.
Comment 5
Page 17, Figure 24, where are Figures 24(c) and 24(d)? Please check.
Answer to comment 5
Revised. Thank you.
Reviewer 3 Report
General Comment:
The article presents an investigation on the seismic vulnerability assessment of a historical vaulted masonry building located in the south of Italy. For this, after a description of the building, an extended in-situ experimental campaign is described, involving infrared thermography, Schmid rebound hammer, ultrasonic pulse analyser and boroscopy, with the aim to identify the construction technology (including vault types), materials, masonry mechanical properties and degradations, among others. Next, a 3D finite element model of the building is built to assess the seismic vulnerability of the building, considering different hypothesis concerning the in-plane stiffness contributed by the vaults and material modulus considering degradation. Modal and pushover analyses where carried on. The results are presented and discussed, in light of the performed parametric analysis. The authors conclude about the importance of the in-situ experimental campaign to improve the knowledge needed to increase the prediction capacity of numerical models to assess the seismic vulnerability of the historical vaulted masonry building.
The topic that is developed in the article is very interesting and could provide guidelines to practitioners to follow a suitable methodology to calibrate numerical models to assess the structural capacity of existing historical vaulted masonry buildings.
I made some comments/suggestions to improve the article. The reviewer encourages the authors to take the suggestions into account and revise their article.
Specific Comment 1
The article should be entirely reviewed to correct typos. As example, the numbering of sections and subsections from page 10 need to be corrected.
Specific Comment 2
Introduction
The literature review and discussion of the results of previous related studies is somewhat poor. The references must be updated with additional studies from other authors than the main one of this article and also from other nationalities. As example, Dr. Paulo B. Lourenço from reference [12], and collaborators, is considered an international expert on the topic of this article and several studies published by him can be found.
Specific Comment 3
Section 3 (actually it should be 4)
Please give more details about the FE model, namely: used FE families, mesh density and sensibility, linear and nonlinear properties of the materials, loading, boundary conditions, ….
Specific Comment 4
Section 3.2 (actually it should be 4.2)
Please present the used nonlinear laws for the sections (e.g., bending moment – curvature) for the pushover analysis.
Specific Comment 5
Section 3 (actually it should be 4)
In the end of Section 4, please briefly discuss how your results compare with the results from similar previous studies.
Author Response
General Comment:
The article presents an investigation on the seismic vulnerability assessment of a historical vaulted masonry building located in the south of Italy. For this, after a description of the building, an extended in-situ experimental campaign is described, involving infrared thermography, Schmid rebound hammer, ultrasonic pulse analyser and boroscopy, with the aim to identify the construction technology (including vault types), materials, masonry mechanical properties and degradations, among others. Next, a 3D finite element model of the building is built to assess the seismic vulnerability of the building, considering different hypothesis concerning the in-plane stiffness contributed by the vaults and material modulus considering degradation. Modal and pushover analyses where carried on. The results are presented and discussed, in light of the performed parametric analysis. The authors conclude about the importance of the in-situ experimental campaign to improve the knowledge needed to increase the prediction capacity of numerical models to assess the seismic vulnerability of the historical vaulted masonry building.
The topic that is developed in the article is very interesting and could provide guidelines to practitioners to follow a suitable methodology to calibrate numerical models to assess the structural capacity of existing historical vaulted masonry buildings.
I made some comments/suggestions to improve the article. The reviewer encourages the authors to take the suggestions into account and revise their article.
Specific Comment 1
The article should be entirely reviewed to correct typos. As example, the numbering of sections and subsections from page 10 need to be corrected.
Answer to Comment 1
The article was reviewed according to reviewer’s suggestion.
Specific Comment 2
Introduction
The literature review and discussion of the results of previous related studies is somewhat poor. The references must be updated with additional studies from other authors than the main one of this article and also from other nationalities. As example, Dr. Paulo B. Lourenço from reference [12], and collaborators, is considered an international expert on the topic of this article and several studies published by him can be found.
Answer to Comment 2
Thank you for this valuable suggestion. Some references were added.
Specific Comment 3
Section 3 (actually it should be 4)
Please give more details about the FE model, namely: used FE families, mesh density and sensibility, linear and nonlinear properties of the materials, loading, boundary conditions, ….
Answer to Comment 3
Thank you for highlighting the issue, the request information were added in the manuscript.
Specific Comment 4
Section 3.2 (actually it should be 4.2)
Please present the used nonlinear laws for the sections (e.g., bending moment – curvature) for the pushover analysis.
Answer to Comment 4
The entire description of the non-linear element behavior (included the requested law) was added to the manuscript.
Specific Comment 5
Section 3 (actually it should be 4)
In the end of Section 4, please briefly discuss how your results compare with the results from similar previous studies.
Answer to Comment 5
Somme comments were added, as suggested. Thank you.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I received and read the revised version of the manuscript with title “Thermography investigation and seismic vulnerability assessment of a historical vaulted masonry building”. I´m satisfied with the authors’ replies to my comments and I consider that the recommendations were considered to improve the manuscript. I consider that the revised manuscript submitted by the authors can be accepted to be published.
