Review of the Methods for Strengthening and Retrofitting Cultural Heritage Structures

Referring to the fact that the history of each country is the identity of its people and the preservation of originality and culture is also considered as a social value, the maintenance of valuable historical monuments, which indicates the path to the growth of human civilization, is of particular importance. Each country is trying to prevent the destruction of its historic buildings and cultural heritage by applying various methods of reparation and retrofitting. Iran, as a country with an ancient civilization, is a heritage of many valuable historical monuments. Traditional construction materials included masonry materials such as clay and mud, stone, wood and brick, and due to the weakness in physical structure and their low shear capacity and tensile strength, these materials do not have strength for example against strong forces from earthquakes and are suffered heavy damages. Unfortunately, in our country, fundamental work has not been performed on historical sites and complexes so far, and practically, the measures have been taken without any improvement in the structural performance of the buildings. Using special technical and specialized methods, the seismic behavior of such buildings could be enhanced against the seismic forces caused by the earthquake, and minimize the damage on the historical buildings to the least possible extent by strengthening historical monuments. In this paper, by separating the components, we examine a number of strengthening methods belonging to each of them.