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Earthquake-resistant or aseismic structures are designed to protect buildings to some or greater extent from earthquakes. While no structure can be entirely impervious to earthquake damage, the goal of earthquake engineering is to erect structures that fare better during seismic activity than their conventional counterparts.
Seismic retrofitting is the modification of existing structures to make them more resistant to seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes.With better understanding of seismic demand on structures and with recent experiences with large earthquakes near urban centers, the need of seismic retrofitting is well acknowledged.
Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that designs and analyzes structures, such as buildings and bridges, with earthquakes in mind. Its overall goal is to make such structures more resistant to earthquakes.
Contrary to popular belief, base isolation does not make a building earthquake proof. Base isolation system consists of isolation units with or without isolation components, where: Isolation units are the basic elements of a base isolation system which are intended to provide the aforementioned decoupling effect to a building or non-building ...
During the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, the ground floors of several apartment buildings in San Francisco's Marina District crumbled. Read more: Find out if your home or office ...
EN 1998-1 applies to the design of buildings and civil engineering works in seismic regions. It is subdivided in 10 Sections, some of which are specifically devoted to the design of buildings. Section 1 of EN 1998-1 contains the scope, normative references, assumptions, principles and application rules, terms and definitions, symbols and units.
The seismic waves caused by an earthquake will make buildings sway and oscillate in various ways depending on the frequency and direction of ground motion, and the height and construction of the building. Seismic activity can cause excessive oscillations of the building which may lead to structural failure.
As seen in the figure, a building has the potential to 'wave' back and forth during an earthquake (or even a severe wind storm). This is called the 'fundamental mode', and is the lowest frequency of building response. Most buildings, however, have higher modes of response, which are uniquely activated during earthquakes.