Analytical evaluation of seismic performance of non-ductile RC frames retrofitted using CFRP composites

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of different CFRP rehabilitation schemes in promoting the seismic performance of existing non-ductile RC frames. Three nonductile RC frames with different heights representing low-, medium-, and high-rise buildings were investigated. Six typical rehabilitation patterns using CFRP composites were considered and the static pushover and dynamic time-history analyses were conducted for predicting the seismic behavior of frames before and after retrofitting. The seismic performance is evaluated in terms of the inter-story drift (ID) ratio, the base shear-top displacement and the maximum applied peak ground acceleration (PGA). It was found that for low-rise frames, the seismic performance is enhanced effectively by only retrofitting the columns of the ground floor. However, for medium-, and high-rise frames, rehabilitation of columns only was not as effective as rehabilitation of both columns and beams. The CFRP rehabilitation should result in the weak floor transfer of frames.