Overview
Prior to the introduction of modern seismic codes in the South africa. in the late 1980s, many structures were designed without adequate detailing and reinforcement for seismic protection. Furthermore, many of those South africa seismic codes enforced in the 1980s and even into the 1990s are now considered suspect.
It is widely recognized that the most significant seismic risk in the South africa resides in our existing older building stock. Seismic retrofitting is the modification of an existing building to make it more resistant to seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes. With better understanding of seismic demand on structures and with our recent experiences with large earthquakes near urban centers, the need for seismic retrofitting is well acknowledged.
This course describes the many issues associated with the risk from existing buildings, including common building code provisions covering older buildings, evaluation of the risks from any one given building and what levels of risk are deemed acceptable, as well as methods of mitigation of these risks through retrofit.