Integrated Solution-Base Isolation and Repositioning-for the Seismic Rehabilitation of a Preserved Strategic Building

Abstract

This paper deals with the design of the seismic rehabilitation of a case-study building located in Florence, Italy. The particular reinforced concrete building hosts an important operational center of the main company that manages the Italian highway network. It is composed of the juxtaposition of three reinforced concrete edifices standing out from a common basement. The design of the interventions for the seismic rehabilitation of this case study posed different challenges, some even in contrast with each other. The main design challenge was to reach the seismic retrofitting, due to the strategic role of the activities hosted herein, safeguarding as much as possible the peculiarity of the architectural elements. Moreover, the design was made harder by the presence of existing thermal joints between adjacent edifices which were inadequate to prevent the latter from pounding upon each other during an earthquake. This outcome yielded the need to intervene by enlarging the gap between the adjacent buildings. This latter intervention was in stark contrast with the explicit request of the client to bring the least possible disturbance to the strategic activities carried out within it; in fact, the joints are crossed by optical fibers and other technological systems which can be damaged easily. The need to fulfill all these design constraints brought the development of an original design strategy based on the employment of base-isolation in a rather unusual configuration. The details of the design procedure, along with the innovative aspects and the designed devices, are presented. With the objective to refine the adopted strategy in view of its possible repeatability by colleague engineers, the paper also presents a fair discussion of every aspect with regards to both the design and the realization phases. Possible ideas for new research and developments are also highlighted.

Application of Mode-Adaptive Bidirectional Pushover Analysis to an Irregular Reinforced Concrete Building Retrofitted via Base Isolation

“…Unlike in the case of traditional (non-isolated) earthquake-resistant structures, seismic isolation ensures that the behaviors of building structures are within the elastic range and reduces acceleration in buildings during large earthquakes [2]. Therefore, this technique is applied to not only new buildings, but also existing reinforced concrete and masonry buildings, including historical structures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The isolation layer consists of isolators and dampers.…”

Seismic rehabilitation of existing RC school buildings with under-designed joints by means of reinforced jacketing of high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composite (HP-FRCC)

“…The former one, which is more suitable for short to medium rise buildings whose behavior is very similar to a rigid body, can be implemented by means of either elastomeric bearings (e.g. Vailati et al 2021) or by means of Concave Curved Surface Sliders (CCSS) (e.g. Bianco et al 2019Bianco et al , 2021aDall'Asta et al 2020;Braga et al 2022;Di Cesare et al 2022).…”

Seismic Fragility Evaluation of Main Steam Piping of Isolated APR1400 NPP Considering the Actual Failure Mode

“…Therefore, the safety of some facilities due to the increased relative displacement must be evaluated. In particular, the crossover piping system that connects isolated and nonisolated structures must be able to encounter large relative displacements [2][3][4].…”