Seismic retrofitting strengthens buildings to resist earthquakes and other seismic activity. It involves procedures such as better foundation connections, support for walls, and lateral load resistance. It is typically done on older buildings and can prevent costly damage. Retrofitting involves modifications based on individual building needs and is performed by workers under a contractor’s supervision. The goal is to ensure that buildings can handle lateral loads and shaking without collapsing. Common retrofitting procedures include foundation bolting and cripple wall bracing.
Seismic retrofitting is the process of making a building or similar structure more resistant to the stresses and forces placed upon it by an earthquake or other seismic activity. This can involve a number of different procedures, although commonly it involves better connection between a building and its foundation, support for crippled walls, improved lateral load resistance, and other procedures aimed at strengthening the structure. Such work is typically done before a large seismic event to prevent damage to a structure and is often done in areas with a history of earthquakes such as California. Seismic retrofitting can potentially prevent costly or dangerous damage to a building and is often performed on older buildings.
Also known as a seismic retrofit, seismic retrofit is typically performed by a number of workers under the supervision of a general contractor or similar construction professional. As the name suggests, this modernization is done on structures that have already been built, often older buildings that may have been built long before modern safe building standards were established. This work can involve a number of different modifications, usually based on the specific needs of individual buildings, although some procedures are quite common during seismic retrofitting.
The fundamental goal of seismic retrofitting is to ensure that an older building can handle the stresses and strains experienced during a seismic event. Many older buildings were designed to simply stand upright and avoid a single force pulling it down, which is gravity pulling it down. During an earthquake, however, horizontal ground forces can act on a building; this force is often called lateral load. Retrofitting to a building seeks to ensure that these forces are not capable of causing excessive damage to the building.
One of the most common forms of seismic retrofitting is the fastening of a building to the building’s foundation. Many older structures will have poor connections between the bottom of the building and the underlying concrete foundation. Foundation bolting usually involves bolting the sill, the actual bottom of a building, into the underlying foundation. During an earthquake, the bottom of a building typically starts shaking and shifting from side to side before the rest of the building does. This means that without seismic retrofitting, an older building may literally be able to slip off its foundation.
Another common type of seismic retrofit is the support and strengthening of cripple walls, often called cripple wall bracing. Cripple walls are walls found in an area at the base of many buildings, often supporting a crawl space under the floorboards, which run between the foundation and the main floor of the building. During an earthquake, these walls can be damaged and this can lead to a building collapsing or unevenness in its foundation. Crippling wall bracing creates supports that strengthen these walls and help ensure that a building does not shift during a seismic event.
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