Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Steel Buildings

Perhaps, the general public may not be aware, but it is common knowledge among engineers that the forces experienced in a building during a major earthquake are much larger than the forces they are typically designed for. This is because, it is neither practical nor economically feasible to design buildings to remain elastic during major earthquakes. Instead, we design buildings to remain elastic under considerably lower forces, and by using certain stringent details we expect them to ride out larger earthquakes without collapse. The rationale for this procedure is based on our observation of buildings that have lived through large earthquakes in the past.