Posts Tagged earthquakes
How Earthquakes affect Reinforced Concrete Buildings
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
A typical RC building is made of horizontal members (beams and slabs) and vertical members (columns and walls), and supported by foundations that rest on ground. The system comprising of RC frame. The RC frame participates in resting the earthquake forces. Earthquake shaking generates inertia forces in the building, which are proportional to the building mass. Since most of the building mass is present at floor levels, earthquake induced inertia forces primarily develop at the floor levels. These forces travel downwards – through slabs and beams to columns and walls, and then to foundations from where they are dispersed to ground. As inertia forces accumulate downwards from the top of the building, the columns and walls at lower storey experience higher earthquake- induced forces and are therefore designed to be stronger than those in storey above.
Floor Bends with he Beam but moves all columns at that level together
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Building Planning | Earthquake Resistant Buildings
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
The behavior of building during earthquakes depends critically on its overall shape, size and geometry. Hence, at planning stage itself, architects and structural engineers must work together to ensure that the unfavorable features are avoided and a good building configuration is chosen. If both shape and structural system work together to make the structure a marvel.
“If we have a poor configuration to start with, all the engineer can do is to provide a band-aid – improve a basically poor solution as best as he can. Conversely, if we start-off with a good configuration and reasonable framing system, even a poor engineer cannot harm its ultimate performance too much”.
Size of Buildings
Size of Buildings
Earthquake Resistant Structures by Planning and Design Approach
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
Earthquakes have plagued man for millennia. It is a destructive force, which was once upon a time declared to be wrath of God for infidelity of human beings. But today, we understand what causes earthquakes, and can design effective mechanisms to mitigate the effects of earthquakes.
Haiti Earthquake 2010
Basically, there is the Conventional approach to achieving earthquake resistance, then there is the basic approach, and nowadays, there are Active Control Devices which can counteract the effects of earthquakes on buildings.
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Design Philosophy of Earthquake Resistant Designs
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
Severity of ground shaking at a given location during an earthquake can be minor, moderate and strong. Thus relatively speaking, minor shaking occurs frequently; moderate shaking occasionally and strong shaking rarely. For instance, on average annually about 800 earthquakes of magnitude 5.0-5.9 occur in the world while about 18 for magnitude range 7.0-7.9. So we should design and construct a building to resist that rare earthquake shaking that may come only once in 500 years or even once in 2000 years, even though the life of the building may be 50 or 100 years?
Design Philosophy of Earthquake Resistant Structures
Engineers do not attempt to make earthquake proof buildings that will not get damaged even during the rare but strong earthquake; such buildings will be too robust and also too expensive. Instead the engineering intention is to make buildings earthquake-resistant; such buildings resist the effects of ground shaking, although they may get damaged severely but would not collapse during the strong earthquake. Thus, safety of people and contents is assured in earthquake-resistant buildings, and thereby a disaster is avoided. This is a major objective of seismic design codes throughout the world.
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Building Construction Materials for Earthquake Resistance
Posted by Architect in Earthquake Engineering on June 15, 2010
In India, most non-urban buildings are made in masonry. In the plains, masonry is generally made of burnt clay bricks and cement mortar. However in hilly areas, stone masonry with mud mortar is more prevalent. But now a day we are very familiar with R.C.C. buildings, and a variety of new composite constructions materials.
Brittle and Ductile Building Materials