ABSTRACT
We illustrate the advantages of seismic isolation by means of special devices named helical Wire Rope Isolators (WRIs) when adopted to protect the Emperor Caracalla's bust of the Farnese collection (Naples, Italy). Such a sculpture is modelled as a rigid body and the hysteretic behaviour of the helical WRIs is predicted by an efficient uniaxial phenomenological model. The assumed hysteretic model is based on a reduced set of parameters having a clear mechanical meaning and predicts the response of the WRIs with high accuracy. The constitutive parameters of the model have been evaluated from experimental hysteresis loops of the selected WRIs by using a recently developed inverse identification software. The effective performances of the proposed isolation system have been investigated by comparing the isolated and non-isolated behaviour of Emperor Caracalla's bust providing the effectiveness of the isolation system.
