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Rehabilitation of heritage monuments provides sustainable development and cultural significance to a region. The most sensitive aspect of the refurbishment of existing buildings lies in the renovation and recovery of structural integrity and public safety. The Handbook of Research on Seismic Assessment and Rehabilitation of Historic Structures evaluates developing contributions in the field of earthquake engineering with regards to the analysis and treatment of structural damage inflicted by seismic activity. This book is a vital reference source for professionals, researchers, students, and engineers active in the field of earthquake engineering who are interested in the emergent developments and research available in the preservation and rehabilitation of heritage buildings following seismic activity.

The preservation of heritage architecture is a cultural objective rigorously pursued by communities and nations wishing to promote their history, civilisation and aesthetic achievements. Structures built in the remote past by traditional methods have suffered the consequences of extreme loading events, such as earthquakes, over long time periods. Retrofitting is an approach based on recent technological developments and scientific knowledge, whereby modern construction methods and materials are applied to the repair and strengthening of historical structures. This book aims to inform on current retrofitting techniques, their application to various types of historical architecture and their effectiveness to fulfil their purpose.Retrofitted structural forms covered in the book vary widely from age old places of worship, such as churches, mosques and temples, as well as castles and palaces to more modern, distinguished private residences or public buildings, some of them designed by well known architects. Their methods of construction range from traditional, such as stone or brick masonry to more recent textile block systems and even reinforced concrete frameworks. Reference is made to detailed visual inspections of damaged structure providing valuable insight into possible causes of failure; such inspections are usually combined with material characterisation which is an essential input to numerical modelling for assessing the behaviour of the structure before and after retrofitting. The book describes strengthening techniques for masonry walls including re-pointing, injection grouting and the use of steel ties. The use of reinforced concrete is proposed in the form of cast-in-place walls, jackets or tie-beams; that of carbon fibre reinforced laminates for strengthening walls and slabs. Innovative use of materials, such as shape memory alloys, self-compacting concrete or thin lead layers is also suggested. Particular attention is given to methods for moderating the consequences of destructive earthquakes. Seismic energy absorbing devices and base isolation systems are two effective means of providing protection against future seismic events although their application is often met with many technical challenges in practice.Retrofitting of Heritage Structures Against Earthquakes will be of interest to members of academic institutions, government or private cultural preservation establishments and specialist consultant engineers.The book contains very practical, technical advice on many issues; this would be of considerable interest to construction companies specialising in repairs and maintenance of historical structures.

Seismic Retrofit of Existing Buildings is a concise and easy-to-use guideline for practising engineers to assess and design successful seismic retrofit interventions for existing vulnerable buildings. It offers readers guidance on both conceptual design strategies and relevant detailed design considerations.

This book comprises select proceedings of the International Conference on Trends and Recent Advances in Civil Engineering (TRACE 2020). The book focuses on the latest research developments in structural engineering, structural health monitoring, rehabilitation and retrofitting of structures, geotechnical engineering, and earthquake-resistant structures. The contents also cover the latest innovations in building repair and maintenance, and sustainable materials for rehabilitation and retrofitting. The contents of this book are useful for students, researchers, and professionals working in structural engineering and allied areas.

This book assembles, identifies and highlights the most recent developments in Rehabilitation and retrofitting of historical and heritage structures. This is an issue of paramount importance in countries with great built cultural heritage that also suffer from high seismicity, such as the countries of the eastern Mediterranean basin. Heritage structures range from traditional residential constructions to monumental structures, ancient temples, towers, castles, etc. It is generally recognized that these structures present particular difficulties in seismic response calculation through computer simulation due to the complexity of the structural system which is, generally, inhomogeneous, with several contact problems, gaps/joints, nonlinearities and brittleness in material constituents. This book contains selected papers from the ECCOMAS Thematic Conferences on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN) that were held in Corfu, Greece in 2011 and Kos, Greece in 2013. The Conferences brought together the scientific communities of Computational Mechanics, Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering in an effort to facilitate the exchange of ideas in topics of mutual interest and to serve as a platform for establishing links between research groups with complementary activities.

This book presents the fundamentals of strengthening and retrofitting approaches, solutions and technologies for existing structures. It addresses in detail specific techniques for the strengthening of traditional constructions, reinforced concrete buildings, bridges and their foundations. Finally, it discusses issues related to standards and economic decision support tools for retrofitting.

The principle of sustainability should be strictly connected with safety, since both aim to conserve resources: in the case of sustainability, the resources are typically thought of as environmental, while in the case of safety, the resources are basically human. In spite of this common ground, discussions on sustainability usually give insufficient attention to safety. In the last years the EU has made large investments to increase the energy efficiency of the existing building stock, paving the way for a low-carbon future; however, less effort has been made to enhance its seismic resilience. Therefore, the safety and, consequently, the sustainability of towns situated in earthquake-prone countries remain inadequate. In such countries, energy renovation actions should be combined with seismic retrofitting. However, a number of barriers considerably limit the real possibility of extensively undertaking combined retrofit actions, especially for multi-owner housing and high-rise buildings. These barriers are of different kinds: technical (e.g., unfeasibility and/or ineffectiveness of conventional retrofit solutions), financial (e.g., high renovation costs, insufficient incentives/subsidies), organizational (e.g., occupants’ disruption and relocation, renovation consensus by condominium ownerships), and cultural/social (insufficient information and skills, lack of adequate policy measures for promoting renovation actions). This book aims to overcome these barriers and to bridge the gap between sustainability and safety, so to conserve both human and environmental resources.

This proceedings book presents contributions to the International Conference on Critical Thinking in the Sustainable Rehabilitation and Risk Management of the Built Environment – CRIT-RE-BUILT – held in Iași, Romania, November 7–9, 2019. It mirrors outcomes in fundamental and applied research covering a broad palette of competences like observations, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, problem-solving and decision making. The book sets up eight chapters related to rehabilitation and risk in the built environment. Each chapter starts with a broad state-of-the-art presentation comprising the latest ideas and methods in the field assessing and asserting synthesized levels of research, development and novelty through a critical thinking process. The authors of the eight presentations are partners in the E+ Programme for Strategic Partnerships Rehabilitation of the Built Environment in the Context of Smart City and Sustainable Development Concepts for Knowledge Transfer and Lifelong Learning (RE-BUILT).