Seismic Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Buildings

Abstract

Many buildings have either collapsed or experienced different levels of damage during past earthquakes. Several investigations have been carried out on buildings that were damaged by earthquakes. Low-quality concrete, poor confinement of the end regions, weak column-strong beam behavior, short column behavior, inadequate splice lengths and improper hooks of the stirrups were some of the important structural deficiencies (Yakut et al., 2005). Most of those buildings were constructed before the introduction of modern building codes. They usually cannot provide the required ductility, lateral stiffness and strength, which are definitely lower than the limits imposed by the modern building codes (Kaplan et al., 2011). Due to low lateral stiffness and strength, vulnerable structures are subjected to large displacement demands, which cannot be met adequately as they have low ductility. One of the first known examples of strengthening is the strengthening of Hagia Sophia by Sinan the Architect in 1573. With an insight casting light on the modern era, Sinan built buttress type shear walls around the mosque in order to reduce horizontal displacements of the building. When looked at the scientific studies that were carried out on this field, it is seen a research process started in 1950s (Whitney et al., 1955). In those years, infill wall tests which had started to be performed on single storey reinforced concrete frames continued with several structural types and strengthening methods. Deficiencies that emerge in reinforced concrete buildings in terms of stiffness, strength, ductility and redundancy led to studies intended to strengthen buildings against earthquakes. The strengthening methods used today are intended to improve one or some of the behavioral characteristics of buildings listed above. Methods for the strengthening of buildings may basically be categorized into two main groups: System based strengthening and member based strengthening (Moehle, 2000). In the system based strengthening methods, a structural system is modified by adding members such as reinforced concrete shear walls, mainly improving the strength and stiffness characteristics of the system (Jirsa & Kreger, 1989; Albanesi et al., 2006). As to the member based strengthening methods, it is aimed at ensuring an improvement in the ductility of a system by means of enhancements made to those members with inadequate capacity or ductility. In these methods, it can be considered that there are no significant changes occurring in strength and stiffness characteristics of the load-bearing system.