The building owner was after a cost-effective and rapid strengthening ‘design/construction’ process that would bring the building up to 100%NBS capacity. The building façade had a ‘historic listing’ and in general, the existing 3 storey brick front section and the single-storey rear section were showing signs of decay.
BMC developed a pair of linked eccentrically braced frames (EBF’s) on the ground floor level to provide lateral stability while introducing a series of horizontal and vertical steel cross brace elements at upper floor levels to drag earthquake loads into the ground floor EBF’s.
The EBF frames provide a ductile mechanism for the overall structure allowing the lateral displacement/movement where it can be tolerated in the brick ‘out of plane’ actions while the inherently ‘stiff’ upper floor levels (with brick cross-walls) are braced more rigidly by the cross brace system that has been added. BMC provided a full design/detail/construction monitoring service for the project.