Seismic Assessment of Existing Precast Industrial Buildings and development of Innovative Techniques for its Retrofitting

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Numerical simulation of beam-to-column connections in precast reinforced concrete buildings using fibre-based frame models

Publication . Sousa, Romain; Batalha, Nádia; Rodrigues, Hugo

Recent earthquakes exposed the poor performance of precast RC structures, imposing damage on both structural and non-structural elements. The concentration of damage at the beam-to-column connections highlights the vulnerability of these systems and the need to understand and improve its seismic performance. The numerical simulation of connection systems in efficient software packages has been addressed in the past by several authors. However, these models fail in describing the different mechanisms independently and, therefore, are difficult to apply to generic connection solutions. Once identified the main lateral load resisting mechanisms involved, a new numerical model is proposed accounting for friction, dowel behaviour and the contribution of the neoprene components. The proposed model was validated against different experimental tests and a parametric study was performed to understand the contribution of the different components, especially in what concerns to the maximum horizontal strength and hysteretic energy dissipation.

2020-01-15Journal article

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Seismic performance of RC precast industrial buildings—learning with the past earthquakes

Publication . Batalha, Nádia; Rodrigues, Hugo; Varum, Humberto

Precast reinforced concrete (RC) industrial buildings have exposed their vulnerability on recent earthquakes, highlighting structural and non-structural damages most related to deficient transferring of horizontal forces namely in connections between elements. Several studies have been carried out on the evaluation of seismic vulnerability of RC structures, motivated mainly by the need of protecting the existent building stock and human lives. However, the same concern is also relative to the industrial building stock, where precast reinforced concrete building is one of the main structural systems. The collapse of such type of structures can result in important losses of human lives and lead to also large economic impact on society. Severe damages can limit its reparability after earthquake events, which result in its demolition and reconstruction. It was this context of damages that emphasized the need for risk assessment to estimate potential damage for future earthquakes. Thus, the main objective of the present paper is to review and identify the main sources that can increase the vulnerability of this typology of buildings to allow the proper seismic assessment of existing precast industrial buildings and solve the inefficient structural and non-structural problems with innovative techniques for its retrofitting.

2018Journal article

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