Simplified guidelines for retrofitting scenarios in the european countries

A large part of the European building stock was built before implementing the recent energy and structural codes, resulting in buildings characterized by deficiencies in terms of comfort, energy savings and structural safety. The retrofitting and rehabilitation of the existing building stock need to be adequately performed, aiming to improve the seismic and energy performance simultaneously. The work summarized here is dedicated to defining priority scenarios for buildings’ retrofitting to improve the seismic safety and energy efficiency of the European Union (EU) building stock. First, the state of the EU building stock is analysed in terms of buildings’ age, types of structures, energy efficiency, energy consumption and energy poverty. Then, the EU climate demands are presented, namely the regions with higher temperature variations, i.e., heating or cooling degree days. The EU seismic risk is also presented and discussed in terms of average annual losses, average annual economic losses and average annual life losses. Based on these input parameters, nine seismic–climate regions in the EU are proposed using a simplified approach. Finally, retrofitting scenarios are proposed for two types of buildings (i.e., masonry and reinforced concrete) based on their seismic–climate region.publishe

A review of the performance of infilled RC structures in recent earthquakes

The primary objective is to present the most representative types of damage observed in reinforced concrete (RC) structures due to earthquakes. Those damages are divided according to the ten most representative types. Examples and the main reasons that could trigger each failure mechanism are presented. The definition of these damage types is supported by post-earthquake damage reconnaissance missions in Sichuan (China) in 2008, L’Aquila (Italy) in 2009, Lorca (Spain) in 2011, Emilia-Romagna (Italy) in 2012, Gorkha (Nepal) in 2015, Muisne (Ecuador) in 2016 and Chiapas (Mexico) in 2017. An extensive discussion is presented concerning the infill walls’ seismic behaviour and their interaction with the RC structural elements. The presentation of the significant learnings and findings concerning the typical damage herein presented and discussed are compared with the common Southern European construction practice. The impact of the infill walls on the rehabilitation costs of damaged RC buildings is also studied. These costs are compared to those related to the structural damage and rehabilitation of the entire building structure to understand the impact of the infill walls. Finally, a case study is presented to study the effect of implementing simplified retrofitting strategies to prevent the soft-storey mechanism, one of the most common problems observed in past earthquake events.publishe

Influence of seismic loading on axial load variation in reinforced concrete columns

Experimental tests demonstrated the importance of the axial load variation in the seismic response of RC columns, namely, through the reduction in the strength capacity, reduced deformation capacity, and reduced energy dissipation capacity. Thus, this manuscript aims to study the axial load variability of RC columns, according to the plan and height disposition, and assess the relationship between the corresponding column flexure capacity and its influence on the global response of the structure. Hence, three RC structures were modeled using the software SeismoStruct and subjected to non-linear static pushover and dynamic analyses. According to the results, which are assessed in terms of capacity curves, axial load variation, and story/global shear capacity of each model, it can be concluded that the axial load variation is higher in the bottom storys and decreases with the story height of the structure. As observed, the corner columns reached a higher axial load variation than the façade and central columns

A experimental characterization of seismic plus thermal energy retrofitting techniques for masonry infill walls

The renovation and refurbishment of existing envelopes of existing RC buildings are usually performed, focusing only on improving their structural or thermal energy characteristics. However, international concern about the sustainability and resilience of existing building structures demands the rethinking of retrofitting techniques that tackle both aspects simultaneously, making the envelopes more energy efficient and seismic safer. Based on this motivation, a testing campaign was carried out to validate the efficiency of novel seismic plus energy retrofitting techniques. Five full-scale specimens were built, three of them with seismic plus energy retrofitting and two of them with solutions developed to improve each case. The five specimens were subjected to pure OOP quasi-static loadings until reached the collapse or partial collapse. The results of the retrofitted walls were compared with a reference specimen (i.e. non-retrofitted) to assess the efficiency of each solution. From the results, it was observed that the novel combined retrofitting can improve the thermal transmittance of the wall by around 70%, and the strength and deformation capacity by up to 125% and 340%, respectively.publishe

Experimental assessment of strengthening strategy to improve the masonry infills out-of-plane behaviour through textile reinforced mortar

Throughout the last years, the study of the masonry infill walls out-of-plane behavior is being observed by the scientific community with special attention, mainly due to damages observed during post-earthquake scenarios, where several number of damages and out-of-plane collapses of infill panels were found. Different causes are pointed to justify the seismic vulnerability of these type of elements, most of all related to deficient construction practices, which are nowadays still applicable Based on this motivation, two experimental quasi-static, full-scale, out-ofplane tests were carried out on RC frames that were built and infilled with a thin masonry wall made up of horizontal hollow clay bricks. The first specimen is representative of the enclosure of a typical existing RC building in the Southern countries in its "as-built" condition. The second specimen was strengthened with textile-reinforced mortar using glass fiber mesh. Both specimens were subjected to semi-cyclic (loading-unloading-reloading) history of imposed displacements by means of small pneumatic jacks through a uniform distributed load. Experimental results will be presented and detailed in terms of out-of-plane force-displacement responses and damage evolution. In the end, the results of the tests are compared to assess the effectiveness of the strengthening technique

Performance assessment of infilled RC structures considering the infill masonry walls out-of-plane behaviour

The out-of-plane (OOP) performance of infill masonry walls subjected to earthquakes is a topic of growing importance due to the significant number of collapses observed through the recent earthquakes. Nowadays is recognized by the scientific community the influence of these elements in the structural response of reinforced concrete structures subjected to seismic actions. The infills OOP behaviour depends on a series of variables and there is a lack of experimental data to understand and predict their expected seismic performance. There is a need of data to calibrate numerical models and to understand the effect of each variable such as type of masonry, boarder constrains, previous in-plane damage and insufficient support width in the infills OOP capacity. The present manuscript pretends to overview some considerations regarding the performance assessment of infills OOP performance such as based on experimental tests and numerical modeling results. A brief revision of the literature and of the international codes will be presented along the manuscript regarding this topic and will help to understand the importance of the infills OOP behaviour on the performance assessment of reinforced concrete structures

A atuação histórica do BNDES: o que os dados têm a nos dizer?

Bibliografia: p. 25-27; 1. Introdução -- 2. A composição setorial do BNDES entre 1952 e 2017 -- 3. O tamanho do BNDES entre 1952 e 2017 -- 4. A participação de MPMEs e grandes empresas no BNDES entre 1990 e 2017 -- 5. Considerações finaisThis work has three objectives. First, to investigate the sectoral composition of BNDES loans since its creation in 1952, based on the institution’s historical data. BNDES was created to be the bank of the national infrastructure and, in fact, fulfilled that role during its first decade of existence. However, since the 1960s, most BNDES’ financing resources went to the industrial sector. The second objective is to analyze the relevance of BNDES in the Brazilian economy since its origin. For this, the BNDES impact is measured by the ratio of aggregate investment by the gross domestic product (GDP). Data show that BNDES significantly increased its share in the economy in the 2000s, especially between 2009 and 2014. The third objective is to decompose BNDES’ disbursements, since 1990, by company size. Data show that small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have been increasing its participation in the credit granted by BNDES.Este trabalho tem três objetivos. O primeiro é investigar a composição setorial dos desembolsos do BNDES desde sua criação, em 1952, com base nos registros históricos de financiamento da instituição. O BNDES foi criado para ser o banco da infraestrutura nacional e, de fato, cumpriu esse papel em sua primeira década de existência. No entanto, a partir da década de 1960, a maior parte dos financiamentos do BNDES destinou-se ao setor industrial, ainda que de forma cadente ao longo do tempo. Apenas na década de 2010, a infraestrutura voltou a ser o setor protagonista nos empréstimos do BNDES. O segundo objetivo consiste em analisar o tamanho do Banco na economia brasileira desde sua criação. Para isso, são analisadas estatísticas de participação do BNDES no investimento agregado e no produto interno bruto (PIB). Os dados mostram que o BNDES aumentou significativamente de tamanho na década de 2000, especialmente entre 2009 e 2014, quando superou o tamanho prevalecente na década de 1970, período marcado pelo II Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento (PND). Em 2015, contudo, esse processo de crescimento foi revertido, tendo o Banco, já em 2017, retornado ao tamanho observado na segunda metade da década de 1990. O terceiro objetivo é decompor os desembolsos do BNDES, desde 1990, por porte de empresa. Os dados disponíveis revelam que grandes empresas têm sido cada vez menos – e não mais, como parece ser o senso comum – beneficiadas pelos empréstimos da instituição. Isso quer dizer que micro, pequenas e médias empresas (MPME) têm ganhado cada vez mais participação no crédito concedido pelo BNDES

Experimental study of the out-of-plane behaviour of masonry infill walls with and without previous in-plane damage

Recent earthquakes demonstrated a significant contribution of the masonry infill walls in the structural response of the existent reinforced concrete buildings. When subjected to seismic actions, they tend to interact with the surrounding RC frames, which can result in different failure modes depending on the combination of the in-plane and the out-of-plane behaviour. From the surveys on damaged and collapsed RC buildings in the LAquila (Italy) and Lorca (Spain) earthquakes a large number of buildings that suffered severe damage or collapse had their poor performance associated with the influence of the infill panels. The masonry infill walls are considered non-structural elements but, their contribution should be considered in the structural response analysis of existing buildings, for which the understanding out-ofplane non-linear behaviour of infill walls is of full importance in order to develop efficient strengthening solutions to prevent and improve their performance in future earthquakes, and consequently reduce their seismic vulnerability. The main objective of the present paper was to obtain further knowledge concerning to the out-of-plane response of masonry infill walls panels. For this an experimental testing campaign on full scale infill walls was carried out in three experimental (cyclic and monotonic) out-of-plane tests with and without previous in-plane damage. The experimental campaign, material characterization and the test setup will be described along the manuscript as well as the main experimental tests results will be presented and discussed. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London