Issue 46

S. Ivorra et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 46 (2018) 203-215; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.46.19 203 Design of Civil Environmental Engineering Resonances detected on a historical tower under bells’ forced vibrations Salvador Ivorra University of Alicante, Spain sivorra@ua.es , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8647-8173 Dora Foti, Mariella Diafero, Vitantonio Vacca Politecnico di Bari, Italy dora.foti@poliba.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9731-3497 mariella.diaferio@poliba.it , https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2780-1142 vitantonio.vacca@poliba.it David Bru University of Alicante, Spain david.bru@ua.es , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7567-1560 A BSTRACT . The aim of the paper is to perform a preliminary assessment of the dynamic behavior of the bell tower of Basilica Church “S.S. Medici”, one of the most important church in the town of Bitonto, Bari, Italy. The tower is 55 m tall and it is made in reinforced concrete. It is totally disconnected from the main structure of the Church. The structural behavior of the tower has been investigated by performing dynamic experimental tests, which have been executed in two different forcing conditions: recording the vibrations induced only by ambient loads, and, then the ones due to ambient loads and to the excitation produced by the bells. Four bells are housed in the lower bell chamber on a concrete bell frame, four more bells are housed at a higher level bell frame. All the bells are directly connected to the tower and swing in the same direction, so that their movement introduces a dynamic excitation on the tower. The experimental records have detected excessive movements on the tower when the bells swing. K EYWORDS . Dynamic test; Concrete; OMA; Bell tower; Bell swinging. Citation: Ivorra, S., Foti, D., Diafero, M., Vacca, V., Bru, D., Resonances detected on a historical tower under bells’ forced vibrations, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 46 (2018) 203-215. Received: 28.06.2018 Accepted: 04.09.2018 Published: 01.10.2018 Copyright: © 2018 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.