This paper presents a new concept on collapse prevention of existing RC buildings during a seismic event. The idea is to install steel panels in specified locations in the structure to reduce inter-story drifts. The panels are expected to work as a fuse in an electric circuit when a major earthquake occurs; the panels will attract the seismic forces and they may totally damaged but they will prevent severe damage in the main structural system. The proposed panels are light-weight, easy to handle, and can be constructed very quickly. Moreover, they are cheap and do not need formwork or skilled workers. To test the concept, a half-scale, single-story 3D reinforced concrete frame specimen was constructed at the shake-table laboratories of the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute of Bogazici University, and subjected to recorded real earthquake base accelerations. The amplitudes of base accelerations were increased until a moderate damage level is reached. Then, the damaged RC frames was retrofitted by means of steel panels and tested under the same earthquake. The seismic performance of the specimen before and after the retrofit was evaluated using FEMA356 standards, and the results were compared in terms of stiffness, strength, and deformability. The results have confirmed effectiveness of the proposed retrofit scheme.
To strengthen reinforced concrete (RC) structures against possible future earthquakes, several techniques are used in practice such as adding new RC shear walls, column jacketing using steel or RC or carbon fibers, adding steel bracing, and using seismic isolation and dampers. To apply these techniques, the whole building or part of it should be evacuated for several months and if this building is a school or a factory it means that the building will lose its function for several months during the strengthening construction. In this paper, parallel braced steel frame strengthening technique is proposed to strengthen the low or middle raise RC structures in which all the construction works are applied from outside of the building and do not affect the building function. The main features of this technique are ensuring the view, ventilation, and sunlight from windows after the retrofitting work is done. Furthermore, using the construction steel members lead to shortening the construction term, improve in quality, and reduce costs. The idea of this technique is to reduce the earthquake displacement demand on the nonductile existing RC structures by attaching steel frames to the building floors. These frames are parallel to the structural system of the building and their foundations are connected to the existing building's foundation. In doing so, it is expected that during an earthquake the building's interstory drifts will reduce in half and prevent building collapse. The parallel steel frames can be designed to the desired limit states using performance-based design method in FEMA or Turkish earthquake code. A study case of a factory building in Turkey is presented. The seismic performance of the building before and after the strengthening was evaluated according to the Turkish earthquake code TERDC-2007. Analysis results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
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