Strengthening buildings for seismic activity

The vulnerability of buildings in earthquake-prone regions and their rehabilitation pose a major challenge. Over the years, various strengthening techniques have been developed to address this problem. However, most of these methods require occupants to leave the building during the renovation, which involves significant inconvenience. The studies presented in this discussion provide important insights into the various methods for improving the seismic capacity of concrete structures. The effectiveness of various methods for improving the seismic performance of concrete buildings, such as external shear walls, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) panels, encasing columns in concrete shells, and reinforcing concrete structures with metal ties or tension nets, is investigated in this article. The installation of shear walls parallel to the exterior of the building significantly improved the load-bearing capacity and sway stiffness of the structures of RC. It was found that the retrofitted exterior shear walls behaved like a monolithic member of the structure.