Considering that the retrofitted/reconstructed schools will serve as temporary shelter and be used by a large number of the people during the disaster response and recovery operations, it is very important to prepare our schools against earthquakes. In this context, the main objectives are to minimize disruption, to restrict damages on the structural and non structural elements of the school buildings and to provide life safety in line with determined seismic performance levels under the Regulation on Buildings to be constructed in Earthquake-Prone Regions issued on March 2007.
In order to increase the earthquake safety of the building to the desired performance level, new elements are added to the school building’s structural system, measures are taken to increase the flexibility of the structure and the resistance against the forces.The retrofitting of a structure involves improving its performance through some of the measures where possible like implementation of additional vertical elements, sheer walls and jacketing.