A CASE STUDY OF RECONSTRUCTION OF A RESIDENTIAL MASONRY BUILDING: DOES UPGRADING A BUILDING ADVERSELY AFFECTS ITS EARTHQUAKE PERFORMANCE?

Abstract

Earthquakes in the vicinity of urban areas affect a large number of buildings, of different vulnerability classes, built over a long period of time and in accordance with the building codes of that period. Most often, these are masonry or concrete family and multi-storey residential buildings, a large part of which does not have sufficient earthquake resistance in accordance with the current building codes i.e., EN1998-1. When inspecting damaged buildings after earthquakes, it is usually observed that the damage grade is greater than expected considering the year of construction. One of the reasons is additions to the existing building structure, such as the expansion and/or elevation of the building. Building owners mostly do this without design, while not being aware of how they affect the earthquake behaviour of the building. Using a masonry multi-story residential building as a case study, the assessment of the earthquake behaviour of the building using a non-linear static pushover method is performed, considering the possibility of adding additional storeys to the building, with the condition of not affecting the earthquake resistance in any harmful way.