The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recently released ASCE 41-23, an updated version of their standard for "Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings." This standard is a cornerstone for engineers, architects, and other professionals involved in ensuring the safety and resilience of our built environment against earthquakes. Why ASCE 41-23 Matters Earthquakes pose a significant threat to communities worldwide. Many existing buildings were constructed before the implementation of modern seismic codes, leaving them vulnerable to damage or collapse during seismic events. ASCE 41-23 provides a framework for evaluating the seismic performance of these buildings and designing retrofit strategies to strengthen them. Key Improvements and Features Three-Tiered Evaluation [...]

The current example employs a typical building built in the late 1980s. The building has 5 floors of approximately 180 m2 each, and a soft storey at the ground level. The infills of the upper levels are relatively strong with good quality ceramic bricks and mortar of relatively high strength. The combination of the soft ground storey and strong infill panels in upper floors is the most important characteristic of the building and constitutes a serious structural problem related to its seismic behaviour.

The current example employs a typical industrial building built in the late 1980s. The building has 2 floors of approximately 880m2 each. The infills are relatively strong with good quality ceramic bricks and mortar of relatively high strength.

The recent Turkey - Syria earthquake inspired us to write a blog post about the importance of seismic retrofit of existing buildings. The current example - case study - employs a typical building built in Southern Europe in the late 1980s. The building has 4 floors of approximately 200 m2 each, and a soft storey at the ground level.

SeismoSoft team passed the largest of the recordings to SeismoSignal and the findings were astonishing.

Steel bracing offers similar advantages to new shear walls, increasing the strength, the stiffness and the ductility of the building.

This method consists of the construction of new shear walls with large dimensions at selected locations in the building perimeter and/or in the interior of the building.