Structural retrofitting proposal for representative school facility

The recent JKR study for "Vulnerability Studies to Existing Building due to Seismic Activities in Sabah" had discovered considerable number of existing buildings suffer different levels of risk under seismic actions. Recognizing these existing building does inherit some design deficiencies in their earlier design stage, these deficiencies can be overcome either by enhancing the performance existing members or adding new structural elements to achieve the desired earthquake resistance level in terms of section capacity and interstorey drift. Few approaches outlined within the FEMA 547/2006 "Techniques for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings' had been used with this study in seek for most suitable retrofitting method in terms of performance, constructability and cost effectiveness. Three types of feasible retrofitting methods were covered within this paper, the performance comparison among retrofitting each method would be discussed as well. The evaluation criteria and upgrade schemes have been derived from analysis and assessment for this school facility building. The comparison for all the proposed methods of retrofitting an existing building can be measured in the terms of cost over average performance ratio. It can be concluded that each method is having specific advantages in the aspect of structural performance and cost-effective measures subjected to the characteristic of each studied approach.