Assessing the feasibility of achieving functional recovery goals through seismic retrofit of existing reinforced concrete buildings

Damage from past earthquakes has significantly hampered post-earthquake building function, threatening community resilience, and motivating consideration of functional recovery in building design and assessment. This study examines whether it is feasible to achieve functional recovery in retrofit of existing reinforced concrete buildings, focusing on seven buildings retrofit with various motivations and strategies. The seismic response of these buildings was nonlinearly simulated, and functional recovery was probabilistically assessed. The results show that retrofits targeting life safety may or may not achieve functional recovery goals. Achieving functional recovery depends especially on the reduction of drift demands and collapse probability. However, the acceleration increase associated with many retrofits can increase function loss due to the criticality of acceleration-sensitive nonstructural components if such components are not retrofitted. We also examine other performance metrics, that is, economic losses and immediate occupancy limits of ASCE/SEI 41, showing that these provide imprecise, and in the case of the immediate occupancy conservative, proxies for functional recovery.