PSI - Issue 78

Martina Di Giosaffatte et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 1935–1942

1939

5. Numerical analysis The seismic analysis of the Civic Tower of Amatrice was conducted by first applying gravitational loads, followed by seismic excitations at the tower’s base using ground velocity records from the Amatrice (AMT) station during the 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence. Table 1 summarizes key information for the four analyzed seismic events.

Table 2. Characteristic of main earthquakes recorded in Amatrice (AMT) stations during the Central Italy earthquake in 2016

Seismic Event

ML

Depth

Station

Channel NS PGA

Channel EW PGA

Channel UD PGA

[-] 1st

[-]

[km]

[-]

[cm/s 2 ] 368.39 -93.28 -58.55 393.63

[cm/s2] -850.8 105.58

[cm/s 2 ] 391.37 63.77 -49.11 317.82

24/08/2016

6

8.1

AMT AMT AMT AMT

2nd 24/08/2016 2nd 26/10/2016 3rd 30/10/2016

5.4 5.9 6.1

8

7.5 9.2

90.74

521.62

The velocity time histories used for simulations have a total duration of 46 seconds, composed of 10 seconds of strong motion per event, separated by 2 seconds of zero velocity intervals (Fig. 3a). To accurately monitor the seismic response, four control points were identified on the Civic Tower model (Fig. 3b). These points were chosen to provide a representative overview of the global structural behavior during the seismic events and to serve as reference locations for comparing results across different modelling approaches.

Fig. 3. (a) Velocity of strong motion recorded by the Amatrice (AMT) station and (b) location for the control points used for the nonlinear dynamic analyses of the Amatrice Civic Tower 6. Comparison between DEM and BCB Modelling Approaches The comparative analysis between the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and the Bullet Constraints Builder (BCB) focuses on displacement trends at the predefined control points on the Civic Tower of Amatrice. The DEM model effectively captures localized displacements and the progressive development of collapse