«Research Note» A Review of Foundations Evaluation Using Seismic Codes

The experience of last earthquakes has shown the vulnerability of most of structures. This has been caused the speeding up of the seismic evaluation and retrofitting of projects in Iran. In this regard, the instructions for seismic rehabilitation of the existing buildings have been published and are currently beiong used in the evaluation and retrofitting projects. The experience of retrofitting the structures in the past has shown that one of the most important problems in Iran is seismic evaluation and retrofitting of the foundations. The evaluation procedures are usually done such that they results in huge retrofitting plans for foundations and this opinion has been raised that seismic evaluation and retrofitting of the structures is not economical. This paper presents some suggestions for accurate seismic evaluation of structural and geotechnical components of foundations. The results showed that by using the correct relations and understanding the behavior of structure exactly, the retrofitting procedure do not result in massive strengthening.