Seismic Retrofitting Resilience-Based for Strategic RC Buildings

Abstract

The resilience of communities is given by the ideal convolution of the resilience of all their single parts. Strategic buildings require high levels of performance during and after a seismic sequence. Consequently, the seismic retrofitting of old strategic buildings is a central issue in prevention and mitigation strategies. The core of the study is a resilience approach to the seismic retrofitting of existing strategic buildings. Different performance levels are considered and four different retrofitting techniques are compared according to their fragility, and their post-earthquake cost and time recovery analyses. Lastly, the retrofitting techniques are compared based on the considered resilience index, which in turn is related to the estimated reduction of the seismic losses owing to the different retrofitting techniques, but especially to the effectiveness of the intervention based on the relevant cost and recovery times. In other words, these aspects take into account the key role of a building’s characteristics, and its public and strategic role during and after an earthquake. The intervention is selected not only (as is currently done) to reduce its construction times and costs, but to limit the service interruption after earthquakes. The results of this study could be operatively used as support tools in the seismic retrofitting of strategic buildings, either individually or on a large territorial scale.