Seismic rehabilitation of existing concrete and masonry buildings

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Several metropolitan regions in Canada, including Victoria, Vancouver, and Montreal, have experienced earthquakes in the past, and will most certainly experience earthquakes in the future. An aging infrastructure and an increase in population density in these regions has led to an increase in the risk of significant damage to buildings, bridges, and utilities in the event of a large earthquake. Recent earthquakes in California and Japan have demonstrated that concrete and masonry buildings constructed prior to the mid 1970's are particularly vulnerable to significant structural damage or even collapse. But not all concrete and masonry buildings pose a threat to life safety and building owners are frustrated with the high costs of retrofitting large inventories of existing buildings, while engineers struggle to identify the truly vulnerable buildings likely to collapse in future earthquakes. Research is needed to help engineers and building owners faced with the challenging task of reducing the seismic risk from existing structures in our urban centres through seismic rehabilitation. The proposed research will endeavour to remove obstacles facing the seismic rehabilitation of concrete and masonry buildings, thereby maximizing the reduction in seismic risk facing Canadians. In particular, the research will focus on three topics designed to contribute to an improved understanding of seismic performance of existing buildings, thereby enabling the design of cost-effective retrofit strategies: (1) the influence of strength degradation on displacement demands; (2) the sensitivity of out-of-plane response of unreinforced masonry walls to in-plane shear damage; and (3) the effect of material deterioration on the seismic performance of existing buildings.