Seismic retrofitting of deficient Canadian buildings

Many developed countries such as Canada and the United States are facing a significant infrastructure crisis. Most of their facilities have been built with little consideration of seismic design and durability issues. As a result, these structures are vulnerable to earthquake loadings and are in urgent need of repair and retrofit. This thesis provides a literature review of the vulnerability of Canadian infrastructures built prior to the development of seismic design provisions in actual codes of practice and standards. It describes the performance of typical structures under earthquake loading, such as unreinforced masonry buildings, flat slab concrete buildings and steel frame buildings. It then presents the most common retrofitting strategies applicable to low-rise buildings commonly found in major Canadian cities. A case study assessing the performance of hybrid base isolation systems is then presented. The performance of passive and semi-active hybrid base isolation system is evaluated through the use of a SIMULINK computer model of a typical two-story concrete frame building. A significant reduction in interstory displacement is achieved using the passive system and further reduction in base displacement and base shear is accomplished using the semi-active system.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Gemme, Marie-Claude

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jerome J. Connor.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51576

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/51576