A study on building seismic improvement methods and investigating the factors affecting it

Earthquake is one of the natural disasters that causes irreparable financial and life losses. Earthquake prediction is possible to some extent, but its occurrence cannot be prevented in any way. In earthquake-prone countries, special measures are taken to minimize the amount of injuries and damages, and building retrofitting is one of them. Buildings are the most important and main elements that are damaged when an earthquake occurs, so if they have the necessary resistance against this natural disaster or are compatible with it, they will be less damaged. Placement of cities on the fault or even being close to it increases the possibility of destruction many times more, therefore it is necessary to increase the safety of the structures in such areas by observing the engineering principles and necessary standards and protect the lives and property of the people. There has been an enormous research in the field of seismic performance of structures. The improvement in the performance is still a challenging task for researchers and engineers. Many strategies have been considered in this regard to achieve desirable result. Base isolation is considered to be the most popular method of protecting structures against seismic actions. However, use of different dampers has also been a major revolution in improving the seismic action of buildings. This review article is intended to illustrate different techniques for improving the seismic performance of buildings and bridges. The study mainly emphasizes on the effect of different isolators and dampers in mitigating the damage of buildings and other civil infrastructures. Pertinent study in the review explores the possible application of the devices towards effective utilization in buildings, bridge piers and other structures.

Keywords:

Base Isolators , Dampers , Seismic Performance , building