Building Resilient has successfully completed the experimental campaign carried out within the ENHANCE project, marking a major milestone in the development of innovative solutions to improve the robustness of existing buildings.
The campaign involved rigorous full-scale tests on two reinforced concrete buildings subjected to controlled column-removal scenarios. The results provide strong experimental evidence supporting the core ENHANCE concept: installing retrofitting beams at the roof level to allow the floors to be suspended if one or more lower-storey columns fail.
This solution effectively redistributes loads to distant columns, engaging the entire structure in progressive collapse resistance and thereby preventing the collapse of the building. Furthermore, by concentrating the majority of the strengthening work at the roof level, the interruption to the building’s normal operations in significantly minimised.
ENHANCE is a €600,000 Prometeo project hosted at the Universitat Politècnica de València and funded by the Generalitat Valenciana. The completion of these tests represents a decisive step towards validating the proposed retrofit technique and bringing it closer to practical implementation.
Building Resilient would like to thank everyone involved in the design, construction, instrumentation and execution of this ambitious experimental campaign.
A video showing the two full-scale tests is presented below.