SEISMIC RETROFITTING APPROACHES TO 5 COMMON

BUILDING TYPES

No two buildings are exactly alike. In fact, some that may seem at first appearance to be
identical can display significant differences based on a number of factors, including structural
composition, materials, the wear and tear on the building, even the composition of the soil
beneath it.
It’s impossible, then, to give specifications to a retrofit project without first doing a
comprehensive engineering study that examines not only as-built, but inspects the property
itself.
That said, here are some basic approaches to retrofitting applied to various types of structures
found to be vulnerable to damage or collapse in a major earthquake. Here the remaining three
are discussed.

TILT-UP
Tilt-up construction began in the early 1900s, but didn’t really catch on until the post-World
War II construction boom. This cost-effective technique of pouring a building’s walls directly
at the jobsite and then raising or “tilting” the panels into position was and continues to be a
popular way to meet California’s demand for new commercial buildings.
The walls of a concrete tilt-up building can weigh between 100,000 and 300,000 pounds.
Steel plates with headed studs are positioned into the forms prior to pouring the concrete to
establish viable connection points that secure the walls to the foundation and the roof trusses
to hold them in place.
Many tilt-up structures built prior to the late 1970s were constructed with limited or weak
connections that have been proven to fail in an earthquake, causing severe damage and/or
collapse. These building defects can be easily corrected with tilt-up building seismic
retrofitting.

STEEL MOMENT FRAME

Steel moment frame construction dates back to the 1880s with the very first skyscraper, the
Home Insurance Building in Chicago, but this building technique was most commonly used
in the 1960s to 1990s.
Steel moment frame seismic retrofitting is characterized by the use of a rigid steel frame of
beams connected to columns to support the many floors of the structure.
These structures, when built before the 1994 Northridge earthquake, can sustain brittle
fracturing of the steel frames at the welded joints between the beams and the columns. In fact,
many moment frame buildings in Southern California reveal cracks and fissures in these
frames and may be susceptible to collapse in a major earthquake.
There are several retrofit approaches to consider in these instances, depending on the
building. Some included boosted beam-column connections and chevron bracing throughout
or at various points in the structure.
UNREINFORCED MASONRY
Unreinforced masonry buildings make up many of the older structures typical in downtown
communities. They are characterized by walls (both load-bearing and not) and other
structures such as chimneys that are made of brick, cinderblock, or other masonry materials
not braced with rebar or another reinforcing material.
URM structures are vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake, due to a general failure of the
mortar or when portions of the masonry such as parapets peel from the building façade and
fall onto the sidewalk below.
Most of these structures were identified as part of a California mandate for all cities within
seismic Zone 4. During the late 1980s and 1990s, many cities enacted mandatory ordinances
to require retrofits of these buildings.
There are still thousands of this type of building that are yet to be retrofitted.
Retrofit construction of URM buildings consists of several approaches, including securing the
structure to its foundation, joining building elements to avoid independent movement of
various parts of the structure, and steel bracing systems.
As one of the leading retrofit companies in California, Optimum Seismic has partnered
with AIA in a series of articles designed to help inform members about trends, policy and
proven techniques associated with earthquake retrofitting.