Towards an Integrated Approach to Seismic and Energy Retrofitting of Existing RC Frame Buildings

In most of the European countries, a significant share of the built stock consists of Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings designed and realized between the ‘50s and the ‘70s of the past century. As a matter of fact, those buildings do not generally meet the performance objectives requested by the modern codes and standards in terms of both structural safety and energy efficiency. Therefore, the aforementioned buildings are generally in need for retrofitting with the aim to fill the safety and efficiency gap with newly designed constructions. However, retrofitting requires huge costs, which, especially in the case of private buildings, can be seldom sustained by owners. This paper presents the first results of a study aimed at investigating the advantages of combined intervention techniques and an integrated retrofitting approach for both seismic and energy retrofitting of existing RC frame buildings. On the one hand, the analysis explores the definition of techniques potentially characterized by the capability of contributing to both the aforementioned objectives. On the other hand, and more realistically for the type of structures under consideration, it aims at quantifying the technical and economical convenience of approaching the retrofitting issue of existing buildings in an integrated way