Seismic Assessment and Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Buildings

Book excerpt: In most parts of the developed world, the building stock and the civil infrastructure are ageing and in constant need of maintenance, repair and upgrading. Moreover, in the light of our current knowledge and of modern codes, the majority of buildings stock and other types of structures in many parts of the world are substandard and deficient. This is especially so in earthquake-prone regions, as, even there, seismic design of structures is relatively recent. In those regions the major part of the seismic threat to human life and property comes from old buildings. Due to the infrastructure's increasing decay, frequently combined with the need for structural upgrading to meet more stringent design requirements (especially against seismic loads), structural retrofitting is becoming more and more important and receives today considerable emphasis throughout the world. In response to this need, a major part of the fib Model Code 2005, currently under development, is being devoted to structural conservation and maintenance. More importantly, in recognition of the importance of the seismic threat arising from existing substandard buildings, the first standards for structural upgrading to be promoted by the international engineering community and by regulatory authorities alike are for seismic rehabilitation of buildings. This is the case, for example, of Part 3: Strengthening and Repair of Buildings of Eurocode 8 (i. e. of the draft European Standard for earthquake-resistant design), and which is the only one among the current (2003) set of 58 Eurocodes attempting to address the problem of structural upgrading. It is also the case of the recent (2001) ASCE draft standard on Seismic evaluation of existing buildings and of the 1996 Law for promotion of seismic strengthening of existing reinforced concrete structures in Japan. As noted in Chapter 1 of this Bulletin, fib - as CEB and FIP did before - has placed considerable emphasis on assessment and rehabilitation of existing structures. The present Bulletin is a culmination of this effort in the special but very important field of seismic assessment and rehabilitation. It has been elaborated over a period of 4 years by Task Group 7.1 Assessment and retrofit of existing structures of fib Commission 7 Seismic design, a truly international team of experts, representing the expertise and experience of all the important seismic regions of the world. In the course of its work the team had six plenary two-day meetings: in January 1999 in Pavia, Italy; in August 1999 in Raleigh, North Carolina; in February 2000 in Queenstown, New Zealand; in July 2000 in Patras, Greece; in March 2001 in Lausanne, Switzerland; and in August 2001 in Seattle, Washington. In October 2002 the final draft of the Bulletin was presented to public during the 1st fib Congress in Osaka. It was also there that it was approved by fib Commission 7 Seismic Design. The contents is structured into main chapters as follows: 1 Introduction - 2 Performance objectives and system considerations - 3 Review of seismic assessment procedures - 4 Strength and deformation capacity of non-seismically detailed components - 5 Seismic retrofitting techniques - 6 Probabilistic concepts and methods - 7 Case studies