ABSTRACT
HAZUS and RISK-UE mechanical methods evaluate the seismic performance of buildings in terms of damage limit states. They consists in assigning to each building the Capacity Curve in a accelerationdisplacement format and the earthquake Inelastic Demand Curve; the intersection of the two curves provides the performance point which corresponds to a damage limit state (Lagomarsino et al., 2004). In particular, focusing the study on masonry buildings, constant-ductility inelastic spectra can be adopted for the demand spectrum. Besides, capacity curves are used to characterize in a risk analysis classes of buildings ascribed to each typology (Cattari et al., 2004). They can be defined in a simplified approach as bilinear elastic perfectly plastic curves, based on some hypotheses on structural post-elastic behavior and a limited number of easily traceable parameters such as: true fundamental period of vibration; strength and ultimate displacement capacity.
