Seismic retrofit of earthquake damaged masonry housing

Appropriate repair and/or retrofitting techniques for an earthquake damaged building

Abstract

The choice of appropriate repair and/or retrofitting techniques for an earthquake damaged building always requires:

  1. a preliminary assessment of the current state of the building, to understand its stability and its intrinsic robustness, to determine whether the repair and strengthening is viable in terms of delivering a safe building
  2. a detailed design of the strengthening and definition of the construction sequence to ensure that the end product performs as assumed in the assessment phase
  3. an assessment of the materials, skills, logistic and economic resources available to implement a specific repair or retrofitting system.

This report focuses on strengthening methods for masonry structures. It provides a review of available sources in literature useful to support point 1 and provide a number of different suitable methods to fulfil point 2. To address point 3 the reader should review the specific geographic, socio-economic and cultural conditions within which the operations are conducted and determine whether the implementation is feasible to a level of quality which will assure the delivery of a safe building.

The report also has an annotated bibliography, the key advantages and drawbacks associated to the most common strengthening techniques for masonry buildings and a set of conclusions summarising the fundamental steps for a successful strengthening process

K4D helpdesk reports provide summaries of current research, evidence and lessons learned. This report was commissioned by the UK Department for International Development

Citation

D’Ayala, D. (2016). Seismic retrofit of earthquake damaged masonry housing, K4D Helpdesk Report. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.

Seismic retrofit of earthquake damaged masonry housing

Published 15 December 2016