The Mexico Earthquake of September 19, 1985—Statistics of Damage and of Retrofitting Techniques in Reinforced Concrete Buildings Affected by the 1985 Earthquake

Abstract

The 1985 Mexico City earthquake caused very serious damage, especially in reinforced concrete buildings, making it necessary to repair and strengthen many structures. The authors had the opportunity to study 114 of these retrofitted buildings. The data base created with the collected information contains the description of the building, its damages and the retrofitting techniques used. The statistical analysis of this information makes it possible to identify the correlation among the structural and foundation types, the dominant failure modes, the causes of damage and the repair and strengthening techniques used in this group of buildings.