Preliminary results of energy-based intensity measures for rocking wall panels subjected to single pulses

The studies on the dynamic response of free-standing rigid rocking blocks under earthquakes excitations are typically focused on the prevention of collapse, related to their overturning. In recent years many authors focused their interest on the effect of recent severe earthquake, frequently near-fault, leading to the definition of useful stability-diagrams that find their main application for the assessment of the vulnerability of ancient buildings and monuments manifesting the rocking behaviour. Although much research has been focused on the relationship between seismic intensity measures and overturning or potential damage, not many of the analysed quantitative indexes are defined according to an energy-based approach. Considering rigid rocking wall panels of different slenderness, this research attempts to evaluate the correlation between ground-motion parameters, seismic integral parameters (defined according to the energy-based approach) and potential damage in structural engineering application, under the assumption of small rotational angles. The preliminary results of the research show the high dependency between the induced maximum rotation, the input energy, and the maximum rotational energy of the blocks subjected to single pulses.