Seismic Performance of Existing RC Buildings and Elements

Dear Colleagues,

A large part of the existing reinforced concrete (RC) building stock in seismic areas has not been designed in compliance with contemporary earthquake engineering principles (e.g., the capacity design approach), which are aimed at ensuring, under seismic action, proper ductility in the structural response at global and local level, preventing the onset of undesired, brittle failure mechanisms, thus providing to the buildings enough ductility to dissipate energy withstanding large deformations into inelastic field without collapsing. As a result, as confirmed by the field observations following recent seismic events in European countries (e.g., L’Aquila 2009, Lorca 2011, Central Italy 2016), the seismic performance of existing RC buildings under moderate-to-large earthquakes is often characterized by very significant structural damage, up to disastrous collapses, leading to high human, functionality and financial losses. Moreover, the development of capacity models for displacement-based assessment and nonlinear modelling of this kind of RC elements—often referred to as “substandard” or “non-conforming”—is a key issue, both for pre-normative research and for seismic vulnerability/fragility analysis of existing buildings, also within a performance-based and/or life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to the design of sustainable strengthening/retrofit solutions.

The Special Issue is aimed at collecting and discussing contributions focused on the response under seismic action of existing RC elements and structures, controlled by different collapse mechanisms including non-ductile failure modes. The authors are invited to submit contributions regarding, in particular:

• experimental testing of non-conforming RC elements and of existing RC structures;
• empirical-based critycal assessment of current code prescriptions;
• definition of models for the assessment of strength, deformation capacity, and expected failure mode;
• methods and approaches to nonlinear modelling of RC elements’ behaviour;
• analytical assessment of archetype or real exististing RC structures under seismic action alone or under combined hazard sources;
• analytical assessment of simulated or real stocks of existing RC structures under seismic action alone or under combined hazard sources;
• loss assessment for existing RC buildings;
• comprehensive assessment of seismic and energetic performance of existing RC buildings.

The scope of this Special Issue is collecting novel and qualified scientific contributions that may be exploited as reference and support for the definition of code- and practice-oriented proposals for the seismic performance assessment, potentially including also other hazard sources, of this kind of structures/elements, as well as for the ordered definition of frameworks/methodologies/procedures for the comprehensive assessment of their seismic performance including; potentially, multi-hazard sources, as well as environmental and energetic issues. To this aim, the authors are invited to submit contributions ending with a “proposal” section, clearly and straightforwardly defining

• a focused code- or practice-oriented proposal for modelling and capacity assessment of RC elements and/or
• a methodology/procedure for the seismic or general performance assessment of RC buildings.

Dr. Mariano Di Domenico
Prof. Paolo Ricci
Prof. Dr. Gerardo Mario Verderame
Guest Editors

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• seismic assessment
• seismic performance
• seismic risk
• risk assessment
• existing reinforced concrete buildings
• structural modelling
• reinforced concrete structures
• reinforced concrete elements