5th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (SHMII-5) 2011 11-15 December 2011, Cancún, México STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING OF HISTORICAL BUILDINGS: PREVENTIVE AND POST-EARTHQUAKE CONTROLS Filippo Casarin 1 , Claudio Modena 2 , Takayoshi Aoki 3 , Francesca da Porto 2 , Filippo Lorenzoni 2 1 Expin srl, Advanced Structural Control, Spinoff of the University of Padua, Padua, Italy 2 Department of Structural & Transportation Engineering, University of Padua, Padua, Italy 3 Nagoya City University Graduate School of Design and Architecture, Nagoya, Japan ABSTRACT: Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been recently more and more utilized in the study of Cultural Heritage (CH) buildings, as a key activity to increase the knowledge on their structural behavior and to have a deeper insight into their conditions. This knowledge allows engineers to carry out with more confidence and only if necessary a strengthening intervention, and it helps to prevent the execution of intrusive repair works, if not justified by an experimentally demonstrated worsening of the structural conditions. The use of monitoring systems applied under ordinary conditions and installed on CH structures may allow to: (i) validate the functioning of the adopted structural models; (ii) identify the ongoing damaging processes; (iii) validate the effectiveness of the strengthening interventions. In case of a seismic event, SHM can furthermore prove its usefulness in order to: (i) evaluate quantitatively the progression of the damage pattern, (ii) carry out effective and urgent interventions if an unsafe displacement patterns is recorded; (iii) define an early warning procedure for the safety of the workers employed in the strengthening interventions. Monitoring can also be effective when implemented on seriously damaged buildings, if the time schedule for the interventions is difficult to be a priori planned. In this framework, the authors and the university of Padua in collaboration with the officer of the Cultural Heritage Authority, the university of Nagoya (Japan), the National Institute of the Conservation and Restoration (ISCR) designed and installed SHM systems on six representative and emblematic CH buildings in L’Aquila after the devastating earthquake occurred on the 6 th of April 2009 in the Abruzzi Region. The selected case studies SHM systems – presented in the paper – report the experience gained on the use of monitoring in “normal” conditions and after the emergency activities following a seismic event.