Resilience-Based Retrofitting of Adjacent Reinforced Concrete Frame–Shear Wall Buildings Integrated into a Common Isolation System

Abstract

Adjacent buildings of three to five stories with small spaces between them are widely used as offices, schools, and hospital wards. The seismic resilience of such buildings is critical, and retrofitting adjacent buildings by integrating them into a common isolation system is considered effective. The resilience-based retrofitting of adjacent RC frame–shear wall buildings was investigated through a case study. First, the critical engineering demand parameters (EDPs) dominating the resilience performance of such buildings were identified. An isolation scheme was designed to improve their seismic resilience, emphasizing control effect of seismic isolation on critical EDPs. The effect of the yield ratio of the isolation system on the seismic resilience of retrofitted buildings was investigated by comparing three cases. A yield ratio of 2.5% is preliminarily recommended as a valuable reference for the resilience-based retrofitting of adjacent RC frame–shear wall buildings.