Solutions for improving seismic vulnerability of historic masonry buildings

Romania in a country characterised by various seismic zones, with different intensities and different depth events. Timisoara is one of the biggest city of Romania and is located in Banat seismic area, where the shallow earthquakes are specific. The architecture of the city is full of historic masonry beautiful buildings, a lot of them in a dangerous structural state. Taking into consideration the fact that Timisoara was elected as European Capital of Culture for 2021, it is very important to realize the vulnerability of its historical buildings, considering that those buildings will host various cultural activities and will be most visited. This article is meant to show the conclusions of our vulnerability assessment study over 3 buildings from one historical part of the city and the structural change of in-plane behaviour after consolidating the buildings with composite materials, in a way that does not affect the architectural aspect of the building. This study is part of a bigger one that intend to identify the vulnerability curves for all the historical areas from Banat seismic region, Romania.