Assessment of seismic strengthening solutions for existing low-rise RC buildings in Nepal

The main objective of this study is to analytically investigate the effectiveness of different strengthening solutions in upgrading the seismic performance of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Nepal. For this, four building models with different structural configurations and detailing w...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chaulagain, Hemchandra (author)
Other Authors: Rodrigues, Hugo (author), Spacone, Enrico (author), Varum, Humberto (author)
Format: article
Language:eng
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10773/14724
Country:Portugal
Oai:oai:ria.ua.pt:10773/14724
Description
Summary:The main objective of this study is to analytically investigate the effectiveness of different strengthening solutions in upgrading the seismic performance of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Nepal. For this, four building models with different structural configurations and detailing were considered. Three possible rehabilitation solutions were studied, namely: (a) RC shear wall, (b) steel bracing, and (c) RC jacketing for all of the studied buildings. A numerical analysis was conducted with adaptive pushover and dynamic time history analysis. Seismic performance enhancement of the studied buildings was evaluated in terms of demand capacity ratio of the RC elements, capacity curve, inter-storey drift, energy dissipation capacity and moment curvature demand of the structures. Finally, the seismic safety assessment was performed based on standard drift limits, showing that retrofitting solutions significantly improved the seismic performance of existing buildings in Nepal.