72789 - Structural Strengthening & Rehabilitation

Learning outcomes

The course Structural Strengthening and Rehabilitation aims to give students a real structural design ability in many different areas through many different techniques. The course focuses on all materials present in existing structures like masonry, concrete, steel and timber. It includes various information and annotations on non-destructive testing of materials and evaluation of damage levels in historic structures, presenting them in the framework of Mohr-Coulomb materials. The strengthening and rehabilitation design is developed by using traditional and innovative techniques. Among them, the case of restoration with fibre-reinforced polymers is discussed in detail, presenting both the theoretical basis and the design rules, with applications to many important examples. The course discusses several relevant cases of structural damage in detail: soil settlement, earthquake, fire, corrosion, and shock. Some cases of problem solutions are discussed in detail, by comparing the different strengthening techniques. The analysis is mainly worked out with hand calculation so that students can widen their design capacity by applying themselves to some homework proposed at the end of the course, without the need for complex structural analysis programs. The course is expected to form students for real professional strengthening activities, giving them the ability to investigate the damage severity and select the most appropriate strengthening technique.

Syllabus

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