Seismic Retrofitting of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings Using Aluminium Shear Links and Eccentric Steel Chevron Braces

Many existing reinforced concrete buildings have been designed based on earlier codes of practice that underestimated seismic forces, making them vulnerable to damage during seismic action. Equipping existing buildings with shear links and eccentric braces is one of the available seismic retrofitting methods to dissipate seismic energy away from the main structural members. In this paper, a proposal for the seismic retrofitting of two existing reinforced concrete buildings using aluminium shear links and steel braces is presented. First, a capacity-based design approach is followed to determine the required sizes of the shear links and eccentric braces. Second, numerical analyses are used to compare how the original and retrofitted buildings responded. These tests include pushover analysis, nonlinear time-history analysis, damage analysis, incremental dynamic analysis, fragility and reliability analysis, and damage analysis. The results reveal that the proposed retrofitting method can sufficiently upgrade the performance level of the buildings and reduce their storey displacements and interstorey drifts, as shear links are found to absorb almost all seismic energy, therefore keeping other structural members responding elastically. Yet, using shear links alters the local behaviour of the surrounding structural members, which should be considered in the design process. Furthermore, compared to the original buildings, retrofitted buildings are expected to undergo less structural damage as they have lower damage indices. Meanwhile, the fragility of retrofitted buildings is significantly reduced compared to the original ones, which indicates the efficiency of the proposed retrofitting methods in upgrading the performance of seismically deficient reinforced concrete buildings.