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 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.

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

This post aims to present main aspects of seismic isolation in the strengthening of a reinforced concrete building, the available types of base isolation, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

This post aims to present the most common strengthening techniques for the strengthening of a reinforced concrete building. Before moving on to the presentation of the methods, some general points regarding the different retrofit techniques are put forward in the current section.