Performance of a Seismically Repaired Masonry Building

Abstract eng:
WenChuan and Lushan earthquakes in China caused significant damages of many masonry buildings. Most may not collapse, however, not be suitable for continuous living. Based on the seismic assessment, these seriously damaged masonry buildings have to be demolished. But it will take very long time and would cost a lot for a low-salary family to rebuild a new one. Chinese code for field survey stipulates that a crack wider than 3.0mm is a serious damage. And if the number of the walls with such cracks is over 50% of all of the walls, the building is deemed irreparable. This may be too strict since most masonry buildings with even much larger damages still stood right there. Plenty of techniques have been developed to enhance old masonry buildings without damage but lack of aseismic measures. However, their effectiveness to repair seismically damaged buildings remains unknown. This study conducted a series of test on a two-story full scale masonry building. The test was first conducted quasi-statically in both separate horizontal directions to reproduce the seismic damage. Then the damage assessment was carried out, based on which a repairing method employing steel-reinforced mortar layers was selected according to the cost, construction period and bearing load. Similar quasi-static test on the repaired building demonstrates that the strength after repair is about 2.84 times of the original building, and compared with the demolishing and reconstruction, the period reduced to 50%, and the cost reduced to 40%.

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