A comparative study of building strengthening methods to have an efficient and economical solution. Case study in Famagusta, Cyprus

The chamber of Civil Engineers in Northern Cyprus began to approve building projects in 1981. Until that time, such projects were designed according to the rules of the Streets and Buildings Regulations (Cap 96). By the new revisions of these building rules and regulations of 1981, buildings which are higher than four storeys were asked to make an earthquake analysis to ascertain if they are able to resist earthquake force. In 1993, new revisions were made and some practical precautions were taken for better solutions and quality of the projects then. If shear walls are placed in two different directions at 1% of the total floor area of a building, then earthquake analysis will not be required. Since there is a building stock that was constructed without this earthquake analysis, and their performances are not well known, earthquake performances of these buildings are analysed. The buildings found to be earthquake prone are strengthened by application of suitable strengthening method. Presently, there are needs to improve the economy of strengthening method application to ensure that the cost of strengthening does not exceed the cost of raising a new building. Therefore, in this study, a real life building apartment is selected from the building stock constructed in 1970 in Famagusta, Cyprus. It is modeled using structural software. The performance assessment is obtained. According to these results, most available strengthening methods in this region are compared. A direct real cost of the strengthening materials are considered. The economy of the materials required for the strengthening application is obtained. Such methods will serve its purpose on the building bearing load capacity, with respect to the economy of the applied strengthening methods. The best method is recommended considering the economy and problems found during the performance check for the building investigated.