Issues Associated with Retrofitting and Repairing Typical Un-reinforced Masonry Buildings of Two-storey or Three- Storey Height in Areas of Potential Seismic Activity

Masonry dwellings and small commercial buildings are located in areas as diverse as Adelaide, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, and Memphis, Tennessee. The number of these masonry buildings and their design presents a danger to the human population and a potential economic loss when they are subjected to an earthquake. The dwellings of interest are constructed from unreinforced masonry. They date from the periods before the introduction of strict seismic codes. One issue for the engineering and planning community to address is the application and development of suitable measures to minimize the losses to the community from these structural types during and after a damaging earthquake or swarm of earthquakes. The purpose of this paper is to address the practical issues of retrofitting and repairing two and three storey unreinforced masonry dwellings in areas of moderate to high seismic activity.