Maintenance, Repair and Rehabilitation of Building Structures

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Structures".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 914

Special Issue Editors

Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
Interests: seismic vulnerability; seismic retrofitting; masonry; timber structures; composites; textile-reinforced mortar; experimental tests; numerical modelling
Department of Architecture Construction Conservation (DACC), Università IUAV di Venezia, 30123 Venice, Italy
Interests: behavior of masonry structures; natural fiber-reinforced cementitious composite; durability; method of finite elements

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

If we are to address the urgent issue of sustainability in the construction sector, we cannot disregard actions aimed at limiting soil consumption and promoting the reuse of existing structures.

This, however, presents us with the need to find effective and compatible intervention solutions, technically and economically optimized to comply with the current needs in terms of safety, functionality and comfort.

The Special Issue is focused, in particular, on structural intervention strategies for the maintenance, repair and rehabilitation of buildings, with special attention paid to innovative and less invasive solutions, as well as to the use of sustainable materials.

This Special Issue invites researchers to contribute works that advance the state of the art of the relevant topics. These include, but are not limited to, the following fields:

  • Laboratory and in situ experimental tests proving the effectiveness of the interventions (e.g. monotonic tests, cyclic tests, dynamic tests, both on full scale or scaled samples);
  • Discussions on the applicability, compatibility and durability of the interventions and periodic maintenance;
  • Methods to assess the proper installation;
  • Numerical simulations to predict the interventions effectiveness (ranging to simplified approaches to advanced computational models)
  • Analytical strategies for design and performance prediction;
  • Actual applicative experiences and simulated case studies;
  • Original literature reviews and discussions on the topic.

Dr. Ingrid Boem
Dr. Claudia Brito De Carvalho Bello
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • existing buildings
  • structural rehabilitation
  • strengthening strategies
  • maintenance of structures
  • experimental tests
  • numerical analysis

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 4992 KiB  
Article
Effects of the In-Plane Flexural Behavior Modeling Choices for Hollow Clay Masonry Brickwork with Horizontal Holes
by Simone Labò, Stefano Cademartori and Alessandra Marini
Buildings 2023, 13(10), 2438; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102438 - 25 Sep 2023
Viewed by 482
Abstract
Buildings with load-bearing structures made of hollow clay blocks with horizontal holes and cement-based mortar are quite common in Italy, yet the current design standards do not consider specific modeling issues to be addressed by practicing engineers. In the absence of peculiar specifications, [...] Read more.
Buildings with load-bearing structures made of hollow clay blocks with horizontal holes and cement-based mortar are quite common in Italy, yet the current design standards do not consider specific modeling issues to be addressed by practicing engineers. In the absence of peculiar specifications, the prescriptions given for ordinary masonry walls are thus commonly adopted. However, experimental tests proved that walls built with hollow brick masonry performed quite differently from ordinary masonry walls. Considering the in-plane flexural behavior under horizontal loads, unlike ordinary masonry walls that exhibit some ductility, this construction typology performs quite poorly, showing very little deformation capacity and ductility. In recent experimental campaigns, a brittle collapse mechanism was observed due to the toe crush, which entailed the inability of the wall to further withstand the vertical loads. In this paper, the effects of incorrect modeling choices on the characterization of the in-plane behavior of this construction typology and the consequences related to overestimating ductility are discussed; the effects of the reduced ductility on the reliability of the assessment of an existing building as well as on the conceptual design of possible structural retrofit measures are investigated. From the critical discussion, the need emerged to accurately model the in-plane flexural behavior and to update the code provisions to explicitly consider masonry walls with hollow clay bricks with horizontal holes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maintenance, Repair and Rehabilitation of Building Structures)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: High-Fidelity Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis of Soil-Structure-Interaction Effects on Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall Structures Founded on Piles
Authors: Mohammad AlHamaydeh; Dina Saadi; Dewald Gravett; George Markou
Affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, P.O. Box 26666, UAE
Abstract: For shear wall structure analysis, considering the Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI) is essential when evaluating the structural system’s response, as it can unveil behaviors that are otherwise not accounted for in fixed-base (FB) systems. Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (NFEA) is performed on a six-story Reinforced Concrete (RC) shear-wall structure to investigate different SSI effects. The analyzed soil medium represents site class-E soil type per the ASCE 7-16 standard. The structural elements, including the RC wall, slabs, foundation, and soil continuum, are modeled using 3D solid hexahedral elements. Additionally, to further enhance accuracy in the modeling, all longitudinal and transverse steel reinforcements are included as embedded bars within the brick elements. The smeared crack approach is adopted to capture the opening and closing of concrete cracks for optimal computational efficiency. Four types of RC walls are explored; each differs in reinforcement detailing for varying seismicity design levels. The representative structures are loaded with tributary gravity loads applied to the corresponding slabs. Lateral load effects are imposed onto the structures through displacement-controlled monotonic and cyclic pseudo-static protocols. The systems’ mechanical responses from the SSI and FB systems are compared through pushover and hysteretic curves (lateral force versus lateral drift), strain/stress contours, and interpretive response quantities, such as characteristic stiffnesses and energy dissipation. It was found that all SSI models exhibited higher lateral displacements ranging from an additional 34% to 85%, reduced force demands within the superstructure by around 26%, and achieved higher levels of energy dissipation due to soil compressibility. Furthermore, all F.B. models experienced higher strain concentrations at the bottom region of the shear walls. Lastly, the reinforcement detailing (special versus ordinary) had a noticeable effect on enhancing the system’s performance. Thus, it was found that wall shear reinforcement can be reduced by accounting for SSI effects.

Title: GIS-Based Regional Seismic Risk Assessment for Dubai, UAE using NHERI SimCenter R2D Application
Authors: Ahmed Mansour Maky; Mohammad AlHamaydeh; Mona Saleh
Affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, P.O. Box 26666, UAE.
Abstract: Keywords: Seismic damage, High-fidelity structural model city-scale, Regional seismic, Parallel computing simulation, Tall buildings, Loss estimation, Nonlinear time history analysis.

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