Seismic upgrading of cultural heritage – A case study using an educational building in Croatia from the historicism style

Abstract

More than two years have passed since the devastating earthquakes struck Croatia in 2020, in which many educational buildings were damaged. In addition, several damaged educational buildings are under heritage protection, representing a special challenge for civil engineers during structural renovation. Strengthening methods that achieve adequate level of seismic capacity are limited in order to preserve the identity of these buildings. In the manuscript, a short overview of the damage to the educational sector is given with a special focus on a renovation of one case study. The case study is an educational building with a masonry structure located in the Lower Town of Zagreb and from the 19th century. An assessment of the structural condition was performed and a model was developed in the 3Muri software. Three variants of strengthening methods were applied to the model – FRCM, shotcrete and a combination of FRCM and shotcrete. Finally, each variant model was analyzed using the pushover method. The results are compared in terms of achieved earthquake capacity, expected cost and environmental impact.

Keywords

• Earthquake
• Zagreb
• Cultural heritage
• Case study
• Structural strengthening
• Pushover method