No abstract

Vulnerable buildings and their rehabilitation are important problems for earthquake regions. In recent decades the goal of building rehabilitation and strengthening has gained research attention and numerous techniques have been developed to achieve this. However, most of these strengthening techniques disturb the occupants, who must vacate the building during renovation. In this study, a new strengthening alternative for RC structures, namely exterior shear walls, has been experimentally investigated under reversed cyclic loading. Using the proposed technique, it is possible to strengthen structures without disturbing their users or vacating the building during renovation. In this technique, shear walls are installed in parallel to the building's exterior sides. It has been observed that the usage of exterior shear walls considerably improve the capacity and sway stiffness of RC structures. The experimental results have also been compared and found to be in agreement with the numerical solutions. Post attached exterior shear walls behaved as a monolithic member of the structure. Design considerations for the exterior shear wall-strengthened buildings have also been discussed in the paper.

Abstract.A recent earthquake of M=4.9 occurred on 29 October 2007 in Ç ameli, Denizli, which is located in a seismically active region at southwest Anatolia, Turkey. It has caused extensive damages at unreinforced masonry buildings like many other cases observed in Turkey during other previous earthquakes. Most of the damaged structures were non-engineered, seismically deficient, unreinforced masonry buildings. This paper presents a site survey of these damaged buildings. In addition to typical masonry damages, some infrequent, event-specific damages were also observed. Reasons for the relatively wide spread damages considering the magnitude of the event are discussed in the paper.

Van, a city in Eastern Anatolian Turkey, was hit by two earthquakes with magnitudes of <i>M</i>_w = 7.2 and <i>M</i>_w = 5.6 in October and November 2011. Both earthquakes caused extensive damage to many buildings. Unreinforced masonry buildings, especially in rural areas, suffered from those earthquakes extensively as in many other cases observed in Turkey during other previous earthquakes. This paper presents a site survey of damaged masonry buildings. Reasons for the wide spread damages are discussed in the paper

Abstract.Karakocan-Elazig-Turkey earthquake with M = 6.0 occurred on 8 March 2010 at 04:32 a.m. (local time) in eastern Turkey and caused the loss of life and heavy damages, as well. The majority of the damaged structures were seismically deficient, unreinforced masonry buildings. In this paper, a site survey of the damaged buildings is presented and the reasons behind the damages are discussed.