Digital Twinning for the Prognosis of Spatial Architectures: Morandi’s Underground Pavilion in Turin

Concrete spatial architecture was mainly built using techniques that at the time were still experimental and based on design criteria that did not consider seismic actions. The validity of accurate models accounting for such complex structural schemes can be demonstrated, but the latter still would not support a clear comparison with the original predictions. Different from other Morandi’s balanced beam schemes, in the underground Pavilion V of Turin Exhibition Center the main post-tensioned ribs are not parallel beams but are diagonally directed and multiply reciprocally interconnected in order to obtain a spatial structure offering a high overall rigidity and lateral stability, and to contrast the instability of the very thin webs of the main ribs. The paper focuses on how information from the experimental campaign can help to formulate virtual models for prognostic and diagnostic assessments under different scenarios, such as for example the design of structural health monitoring activities and systems.