Seismic and energy integrated retrofit of buildings: a critical review

The European building stock presents pertinent issues needing suitable strategies to be solved. In detail, this regards seismic safety and energy efficiency of buildings to ensure more liveable and safe cities, which represents an important goal for modern societies. Energy performance includes both comfort and saving, the latter required for a more responsible resource consumption within the building sector, having a considerable contribution to the total demand. Current strategies do not seem to be able to simultaneously solve such aspects satisfactorily, both for higher economic requirements and poor technical feasibility implied by separated and disharmonious interventions. Thus, a holistic perspective should be adopted to pursue such an ambitious objective, which has recently gained increasing attention among researchers. Current requirements are firstly highlighted to show the need for an integrated approach to building retrofit. Secondly, a critical review of integrated strategies combining seismic and energy refurbishment proposed in the literature is reported. Then, special issues are discussed, including the feasibility of an integrated approach applied to heritage buildings. This study revealed that a fully efficient strategy for integrated retrofit has not still been proposed in the literature and there are several open issues to be solved. However, current solutions may be further developed to improve them and the several options currently available demonstrated the increasing attention and importance of the topic. Finally, concluding remarks on this research topic have been drawn to promote future studies.Authors acknowledge the support through project NORTE01-0145-FEDER-000058, cofounded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through Norte Regional Operational Programme, and grant agreement 2022.11827.BD, provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. This work was partly financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) under the R&D Unit Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE), under reference UIDB/04029/2020

Structural Health Monitoring for Performance Assessment of Bridges under Flooding and Seismic Actions

Bridges can be subjected to damaging environmental actions due to flooding and seismic hazards. Flood actions that result in scour are a leading cause of bridge failure, while seismic actions that induce lateral forces may lead to high ductility demand that exceeds pier capacity. When combined, seismic actions and scour can lead to effects that depend on the governing scour condition affecting a bridge. Loss of stiffness under scour can reduce the ductility capacity of a bridge but can also lead to an increase in flexibility that may reduce seismic inertial forces. Conversely, increased flexibility can lead to deck collapse due to support loss, so there exists some uncertainty about the combined effect of both phenomena. A necessary step towards the performance assessment of bridges under flooding and seismic actions is to calibrate numerical models that can reproduce structural responses under different actions. A further step is verifying the achievement of performance goals defined by codes. Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques allow the computation of performance parameters that are useful for calibrating numerical models and performing direct checks of performance goal compliance. In this paper, various strategies employed to monitor bridge health against scour and seismic actions are discussed, with a particular focus on vibration-based damage identification methods

Review of novel seismic energy dissipating techniques toward resilient construction

Damage to structures and infrastructure after earthquakes shows the level of their vulnerability and the permanent need for their upgrade for better seismic performance and resilience. In recent years, much improvement has been made regarding various dissipation techniques, which affect the “functionality” performance level once structures are exposed to strong ground motions. Intensified research and developments are ongoing on various devices, from passive, active to semi-active, and hybrid damping mechanisms. Based on the literature, it can be seen that the base isolation systems are mainly utilized in severe earthquake-prone regions, while passive energy dissipating techniques are used in regions with high winds and in moderate seismic zones. Active seismic energy dissipating techniques are reluctantly used in many cases, as severe earthquakes very often cause power failure, which prevents the activation of active and semi-active devices. This chapter gives an overview of the latest developments in this field

Seismic Assessment of a Modernist Building in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the Kopčić House, a significant example of modernist architecture in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on its structural-specific features and seismic performance. The Kopčić House embodies a confined masonry structure with innovative construction features, combining load-bearing masonry walls with reinforced concrete elements. This architectural approach was pioneering for its time, combining traditional construction methods with innovative materials and techniques. Detailed analysis using numerical modeling techniques, specifically 3D modeling with the 3Muri software (Vers.14.2.0.4), was conducted to assess the seismic resilience of the structure. The analysis considered different load distributions and eccentricities to comprehensively evaluate the building’s response to lateral forces. The findings of this research reveal the structural capacity and potential vulnerabilities of the Kopčić House when subjected to seismic events. While the building demonstrates inherent strength due to its confined masonry design, areas requiring structural strengthening were identified through numerical simulations. This study contributes to the broader understanding of confined masonry construction within the context of modernist architecture. By integrating historical research with advanced structural analysis, this work aims to bridge the gap between architectural heritage and contemporary engineering practices

Editorial : seismic resilience, vulnerability and energy efficience in respect of climate change

[Excerpt] The unfolding narrative of climate change is leaving indelible impacts worldwide, challenging the very fabric of urban infrastructure. As the environment undergoes swift and profound transformations - marked by soaring temperatures, recurrent flooding, and landslides - side by side with cataclysmic earthquakes, the vulnerabilities of our constructed landscapes emerge starkly. No longer can we remain mere spectators; the exigency now is to engage with solutions that encompass durability, sustainability, and resilience.- (undefined

Developing case studies for implementing COST TU1406 quality control plan procedure for typical highway bridges

An extensive work was done by COST TU1406 working groups (WG) 1,2 and 3 for preparing a guidance document for Quality Control Plan (QCP) of road bridges. WG 1, 2 and 3 reports named 'Performance Indicators for Roadway Bridges', 'Performance Goals for Roadway Bridges' and 'Establishment of a quality control plan' are already published. Based on these documents and the work done to-date, a new procedure for implementing the developed guidelines for the preparation of QCP for roadway bridges was developed by WG4 members in order to unify the method used and to validate the outcomes of the developed QCP. At the first stage, a set of common highway bridge prototypes were identified including girder, frame, arch and truss bridges. A database was created where each participating country has identified local bridges for developing of the case studies. Nine out of sixty bridges where selected for the first stage of preparing an example of QCP and the case study reports were compared with an objective to validate the outcomes. A guideline document was prepared with unified instruction on how to develop the national case study per country. The typical case study includes few stages which are defined based on the work done by WG1, 2 and 3. The stages includes data collection, element identification and grouping, defining vulnerable zones, damage processes and failure modes, selecting and evaluating performance indicators (PIs) and calculating key performance indicators (KPIs), establishing demands, creating QCP scenarios and comparing them by spider diagrams. First outcomes of the prototypes case study reports are now being updated to reflect the final version of WG3 report and together with the guidelines document will be distributed among participating countries to enable the benchmarking process for the full set of bridges representing Europe common highway bridge topologies.- (undefined

Monitoring-based performance parameters for assessment of bridges under scour and seismic hazards

In infrastructural networks, bridges can be considered key elements and their functionality must be preserved. Floods (leading to scour erosion) and earthquakes could be considered among the most critical natural events that may become more frequent with climate change, causing significant damage to bridges. Several regions in Europe have both seismic and scour hazards. The two types of hazards are actually independent as to the generation process but the loss of surrounding soil due to scour may significantly reduce the lateral strength of pile foundations thus increasing the earthquake damage potential. Bridge assessment has thus to take into account the possible increased risk induced by the joint action of the two phenomena. Monitoring systems can be an effective support in bridge assessment procedures providing updated information about the structural state and performance thus allowing both the prompt detection of a possible damage state after an event and also support for long term assessment of the structural conditions. Several performance parameters can be used to perform bridge assessment with respect to several hazards at different levels: element, structure, and network. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of monitoring-based performance parameters that can be used for separate seismic and flood related hazard in order to identify possible selection of parameters effective in describing the joint hazard due to both phenomena.Geo-engineerin