Strengthening Design of an Existing Old Masonry Building

In this paper, the structural performance of an existing old masonry building constructed in 1963 was detected in filed and assessed. The results indicated that essential strengthening measures should be adopted to improve its stiffness, strength and seismic performance. To keep the original architectural appearance and style of the building due to its particular historical significance, various strengthening technics (e.g. the externally bonded steel plate technic, the adding steel braces to enhance the lateral stiffness, the strengthening with steel mesh reinforced concrete splint method and etc.) were thus designed to repair and strengthen the structure. 10% probability of failure risk was used to determine the earthquake parameters involved in the seismic strengthening design, which has also reduced the engineering cost. The design methods presented in this study and the corresponding seismic construction measures adopted in the project are validated to be effective and feasible, and have achieved the given performance - oriented.