Existing Structures Evaluation According to Previous and Present Building Codes
Zusammenfassung
Over 95% of the structures
in service in Puerto Rico were
designed by derogated codes. All major
hospitals, bridges, many schools
and government structures were
designed with the 1997 Puerto Rico
Building Code and older codes. Actually,
the 2009 International Building
Code, with amendments, is the
official Design Code for Puerto Rico
substituting the 1997 Uniform Building
Code a few years ago. The International
Building Code has been used
to determine loads in the past decade
and is the governing code of building
construction in many jurisdictions in
the United States. The structural engineer
has to be familiar with previous
codes in order to evaluate existing
structures in comparison to the requirements
of new codes. In this paper, a
comparison of the 1987 Puerto Rico
Building Code, the1997 Uniform
Building Code, the 2009 International
Building Code and actual cases of
existing structures will be presented.