Effectiveness of techniques for seismic strengthening of RC frame buildings

The techniques for seismic strengthening of reinforced concrete buildings, namely steel braces, masonry infills and shear walls, are reviewed with the aim of assessing their effectiveness for the increase of global strength and stiffness and energy‐dissipation capacity and of providing guidance to designers regarding the most appropriate solution for practical applications. Although the results obtained by extensive experimental testing and numerical analyses of elements and structures present large scatter, they show that the highest performance improvement is provided by shear walls, followed by braces and infills. The review also highlights the issues that remain open in view of the development of design guidelines; the most important are the development of design tools and detailing rules for the connection between new and existing elements.

TSIONIS Georgios;  TAUCER Fabio;  APOSTOLSKA Roberta; 

2015-12-14

International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering

JRC95684