EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT

STRUCTURES

EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT
STRUCTURES

Lecture – 17-21
Ground Shaking at a given location during an Earthquake
can be :

•Minor - FREQUENTLY

•Moderate – OCCASIONALLY

•Strong - RARELY

For instance, on average annually about 800 earthquakes of

magnitude 5.0-5.9 occur in the world while the number is only
about 18 for magnitude range 7.0-7.9
 Should we do away with the design of buildings for
earthquake effects?
Or
Should we design the buildings to be
"earthquake proof wherein there is no damage during the
strong but rare earthquake shaking?

The Former approach can lead to A Major Disaster,

and
The Second Approach is too Expensive.
 Earthquake-Resistant Buildings
Earthquake proof Buildings Damaged even during the rare but strong earthquake.

TOO EXPANSIVE AND TOO ROBUST

INSTEAD ENGINEERS TEND TO DESIGN

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.
Safety of People and Contents is assured in
earthquake-resistant buildings
Earthquake Design Philosophy
 Earthquake Design Philosophy

Under minor but frequent shaking, the main members of the building
that carry vertical and horizontal forces should not be damaged;
however building parts that do not carry load may sustain repairable
damage.

Under moderate but occasional shaking, the main members may

sustain repairable damage, while the other parts of the building may
be damaged such that they may even have to be replaced after the
earthquake; and

Under strong but rare shaking, the main members may sustain severe
(even irreparable) damage, but the building should not collapse.
The consequences of damage have to be kept in view in the design
Philosophy
 Damage in Buildings: Unavoidable
Different types of damage (mainly visualized though cracks; especially
so in concrete and masonry buildings) occur in buildings during
earthquakes.
Some of these cracks are acceptable (in terms of both their size and
location), while others are not.

Unacceptable Crack Acceptable Crack

Earthquake-resistant design is therefore concerned about ensuring that
the damages in buildings during earthquakes are of the acceptable
variety, and also that they occur at the right places and in right amounts.
 STRUCTURAL STIFFNESS, STRENGTH AND DUCTILITY

Lateral stiffness refers to the initial stiffness of

the building, even though stiffness of the
building reduces with increasing damage.

Lateral strength refers to the maximum

resistance that the building offers during its
entire history of resistance to relative
deformation.

Ductility towards lateral deformation refers

the ratio of the maximum deformation and
the idealised yield deformation.
At least a minimum lateral stiffness in each of its plan directions
(uniformly distributed in both plan directions of the building), so that
there is no discomfort to occupants of the building and no damage to
contents of the building;

At least a minimum lateral strength in each of its plan directions

(uniformly distributed in both plan directions of the building), to
resist low intensity ground shaking with no damage, and not too strong
to keep the cost of construction in check, along with a minimum
vertical strength to be able to continue to support the gravity load
and thereby prevent collapse under strong earthquake shaking.

Good overall ductility in it to accommodate the imposed lateral

deformation between the base and the roof of the building
 Damage in Buildings: Acceptable
Task now is to identify acceptable forms of damage and desirable
building behaviour during earthquakes.
For example :
WHITE CHALK USED TO WRITE ON BLACKBOARDS AND STEELPINS
WITH SOLID HEADS USED TO HOLD SHEETS OF PAPER TOGETHER.
a chalk breaks easily on the contrary, a steel pin allows it to be bent back-and-forth.

ENGINEERS DEFINE THE PROPERTY THAT ALLOWS STEEL PINS TO BEND

BACK-AND-FORTH BY LARGE AMOUNTS, AS DUCTILITY; CHALK IS A
BRITTLE MATERIAL.

Earthquake-resistant buildings, particularly their

main elements, need to be built with ductility in them.
 PROPERTIES OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

Concrete is another material that has been

popularly used in building construction
particularly over the last four decades.

Cement concrete is made of crushed stone pieces

(called aggregate), sand, cement and water
mixed in appropriate proportions.

Concrete is much stronger than masonry under

compressive
loads, but again its behaviour in tension is poor.

BOTH ARE BRITTLE

Steel is used in masonry and concrete buildings as reinforcement bars of diameter ranging
from 6mm to 40mm.
Reinforcing steel can carry both tensile and compressive' loads.
Steel is a ductile material.
This important property of ductility enables steel bars to undergo large elongation before
breaking.
Ductility is one of the most important factors affecting the building performance.
PROPERTIES OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
CHAIN ANALOGY: DUCTILE CHAIN DESIGN

Beams can be made ductile more easily

than the columns

Weak beam – strong column philosophy

 For a building to remain safe during
earthquake shaking, columns (which
receive forces from beams) should
be stronger than beams, and
foundations
(which receive forces from columns)
should be stronger than columns.

Connections between beams & columns and

columns & foundations should not fail so that
beams can safely transfer forces to columns
and columns to foundations.
When beams are detailed properly to have large ductility, the building as a whole
can deform by large amounts despite progressive damage caused due to
consequent yielding of beams.

In contrast, if columns are made weaker, they suffer severe

local damage, at the top and bottom of a particular storey
High uncertainty of the ductility design strategy is primarily attributed to:

1. The desired strong-column weak-beam mechanism may not form in reality, due to
existence of walls.

2. Shear failure of columns due to inappropriate geometrical proportions of

short-column effect.

3. Construction difficulty in grouting, especially at beam-column joints, due to

complexity of steel reinforcement required by ductility design.

Thus, it necessitates finding a method that is devoid of the shortcomings of the

ductility approach.
Two basic technologies are used to protect buildings from damaging earthquake
effects. These are Base Isolation Devices and Seismic Dampers.

BASE ISOLATION

The idea behind base isolation is to detach (isolate) the building from the
ground in such a way that earthquake motions are not transmitted up through
the building, or at least greatly reduced.

SEISMIC DAMPERS

Seismic dampers are special devices introduced in the building to absorb the
energy provided by the ground motion to the building
 ALTERNATIVE AND EMERGING APPROACH: BASE ISOLATION
PASSIVE CONTROL SYSTEM
It is necessary to understand why base isolation is needed to enhance performance
levels of the structure subjected to seismic excitations.
As the name implies base isolation tries to decouple the
structure from the damaging effects of ground motion in the
event of an earthquake.

Base isolation is not about complete isolation of the structure

from the ground, as with magnetic levitation, which may be
very rarely practical.

Most of the base isolation systems that have been developed over
the years provide only ‘partial’ isolation.
‘Partial’ in the sense that much of the force transmitted, and the
consequent responsive motions are only reduced by providing
flexibility and energy dissipation mechanisms with the addition
of base isolation devices to the structure.
Base isolation, as a strategy to protect structure from earthquake, REVOLVES AROUND A
FEW BASIC ELEMENTS OF UNDERSTANDING:

1. Period-shifting of structure: Base isolator is a more flexible device compared to the

flexibility of the structure. Thus, coupling both an isolator and the superstructure
together increases the flexibility of the total isolated structural system. In this way, this
technique lengthens the structures natural time period away from the predominant
frequency of the ground motions, thus evading disastrous responses caused due to
resonance.

2. Mode of vibration: The fundamental mode of vibration (first mode shape) is altered
from continuous cantilever type structure to an almost rigid superstructure with
deformations concentrated at the isolation level.

3. Damping and cutting of load transmission path: A damper or energy dissipater is

used to absorb the energy of the force to reduce the relative deflection of the structure
with respect to the ground.
MECHANISM OF BASE ISOLATION
If the same building is rested on flexible pads
that offer resistance against lateral
movements , then some effect of the ground
shaking will be transferred to the building
above. If the flexible pads are properly
chosen, the forces induced by ground shaking
can be a few times smaller than that
experienced by the building built directly on
ground, namely a fixed base building
The flexible pads are called base-isolators, whereas the structures protected by
means of these devices are called base-isolated buildings.
The main feature of the base isolation technology is that it
introduces flexibility in the structure.
As a result, a robust medium-rise masonry or reinforced
concrete building becomes extremely flexible.

The isolators are often designed to absorb energy and

thus add damping to the system. This helps in further
reducing the seismic response of the building. Several
commercial brands of base isolators are available in the
market, and many of them look like large rubber pads,
although there are other types that are based on sliding of one
part of the building relative to the other.
A careful study is required to identify the most suitable type
of device for a particular building. Also, base isolation is not
suitable for all buildings. Most suitable candidates for base-
isolation are low to medium-rise buildings rested on hard soil
underneath; high-rise buildings or buildings rested on soft
soil are not suitable for base isolation
 VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2eHCxB-K7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6pxxan8bDg
TYPES OF BASE ISOLATORS
ELASTOMERIC BEARINGS
SLIDING BEARINGS
SLIDING BEARINGS
SLIDING BEARINGS
 DAMPERS

Damping is measured by reference to a theoretical damping

level termed critical damping. This is the least amount of
damping that will allow the structure to return to its original
position without any continued vibration. For most structures,
the amount of damping in the system will vary from between 3
percent and 10 percent of critical.
 DAMPERS
Energy Dissipation System(Dampers)
• Mechanical system which dissipate earthquake energy into specialized devices
which deforms or yield during earthquake.
• They enhance energy dissipation in a structure to which they are installed so that
the structure has to resist lesser amount of earthquake forces.
• They are not used to support the structure.

In normal ambient shaking of building, many factors impede its motion,

e.g., drag from air resistance around the building, and friction between various
interfaces in the building (like masonry infill walls and RC beams and columns).
This damping is called STRUCTURAL DAMPING.
Here, reinforcement bars and concrete of the RC buildings enter nonlinear
range of material behaviour.
The damping that arises from these inelastic actions is called HYSTERETIC
DAMPING; this further dampens oscillations of the building.
 DAMPERS
 When seismic energy is transmitted through them, dampers absorb part of it, and
thus damp the motion of the building.
Behaviour of Building with and without dampers .
 TYPES OF DAMPERS
1. Hydraulic Dampers(oleodynamic
Devices)or Viscous Dampers

2. Friction Dampers

3. Yielding Dampers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=OoWtKmNoz6Q
VISCOUS DAMPER
FRICTION DAMPER
METALLIC YIELD DAMPER
METALLIC YIELD DAMPER
VISCO ELASTIC DAMPER
TUNED MASS DAMPER
Viscous dampers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoWtKmNoz6Q

Friction dampers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6vMH-gZjN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2lZkbGq3Nc
 Eccentric centre of gravity and centre of stiffness
The centre of mass is the point were the entire mass of the floor
acts and centre of rigidity(shear centre or centre of rotation)
is the where the entire stiffness of the building acts.
Mass is majorly contributed by beams and slabs where stiffness
is contributed by the columns and shear walls of the building.
 Torsion
Centre of gravity or mass of any structure pass through a
point where it would be balanced against any rotation.
Any load, when uniformly distributed, then the point
would coincide with geometric centre of the structure. If
this centre of mass coincides with centre of rigidity, then
there would be no rotation effect.
The earthquake force assumed to act at the centre of
mass of the structure, and the resistance of the building
would pass through the centre of rigidity.
Asymmetry as far as mass and rigidity/ stiffness
distribution is concerned, would experience a rotational
problem. This is referred as Torsion, and as a result twisting
would occur to it, which is undesirable.
Not only in plan form, asymmetry has to be checked in
3 dimensional configuration of a structure to arrest the
rotation phenomenon.
 DESIGN ECCENTRICITY
The offset between the centre of mass of any structure and the centre of
rigidity/stiffness of the safe is referred as eccentricity. IS 1893(Part1): 2002 refers
Design Eccentricity (edi) as the value of eccentricity to be used at floor in the
torsion calculations for design.
In asymmetrical configuration / structural system the eccentricity between
the centre of mass and resistance will produce torsion and stress concentration
and therefore the symmetrical forms are preferred to the asymmetrical ones.