Geometrical and Material Characterization of Old Industrial Masonry Buildings in Eastern Canada

The benefits of repurposing existing constructions are recognized by provincial legislation for their potential in achieving sustainable development goals. In recent years, adaptive reuse projects in Eastern Canada targeting seismically vulnerable old buildings, especially those once used by local industries and featuring unreinforced masonry members, have significantly increased. When major renovations are planned, however, the objectives set by the National Building Code of Canada require old buildings to achieve the same seismic performance of modern ones. As a result, and because of the lack of ad-hoc guidelines and the limited knowledge of traditional construction methods, local engineers are prompted to design overly invasive retrofits or demolish/reconstruct entire sub-structures. To avoid such unsustainable practices, preserve the integrity of Eastern Canada’s built environment and enable its responsible reuse, this research aims to increase knowledge about the response of old unreinforced brick masonry industrial buildings. These results can aid in the classification of typical old industrial masonry buildings and uncover key structural characteristics and quantify their seismic performance, providing essential yet presently missing data to engineering professionals and researchers involved in seismic upgrading projects. First, archival resources are used to track the evolution of structural systems, architectural features and employed materials at the regional scale, enabling us to identify representative building assets at the municipal level. Targeted onsite surveys are thus conducted to evaluate structural conditions and material properties, as well as to create high-fidelity digital geometries, through visual assessment, non-destructive testing and 3D laser scanning. Informed seismic analyses can then performed via numerical modelling, providing insights on recurrent failure mechanisms, displacement and base shear capacities. In this paper, the proposed holistic methodology is applied to two case study buildings located in Montréal and preliminary results are presented. The results presented herein will allow for identification of more sustainable, less invasive but equally performing seismic retrofit measures, tailored to the unique characteristics of the local old industrial masonry structures.