Earthquake resistant structures

About: Earthquake resistant structures is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1126 publications have been published within this topic receiving 27467 citations.

Seismic Resistance of Existing Buildings

Abstract: A particular opportunity to upgrade the seismic resistance of existing buildings arises when their lifetime is extended by major renovations. There is lacking, however, a set of guidelines that relates the cost of strengthening a structure to the probable reduction in earthquake-induced damage and life loss. This paper offers a recommendation for strengthening buildings undergoing renovations in zones where intensity of expected seismic shaking is low. Two buildings, one a masonry bearing wall and heavy timber floor warehouse and the other a reinforced concrete flat slab factory, are studied to determine the existence of weak links in seismic resistance and the cost of upgrading such resistance during major renovations. The expected damage from three levels of earthquake for the two buildings is summarized in damage probability matrices; these matrices are then used to compute mean damage ratios (MDR). Each MDR is shown as a function of strengthening cost, providing a means for estimating the reduction in seismic risk of these buildings from their present condition when they are either strengthened to a recommended practical level or replaced with new construction.

A New Methodology for Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Reinforced-Concrete Buildings Including Their Pile Foundations

Abstract: At present, information on foundation-structure interactions of buildings is lacking. As a result, seismic performance evaluations of buildings seldom consider the effect of foundation performance on the building response. Recent destructive earthquakes, such as the Hokkaido Nansei-oki earthquake (magnitude M = 7.8, Japan, 1993), Northridge earthquake (M = 6.7, U.S.A., 1994), Hyogoken-Nambu earthquake (M = 7.2, Japan, 1995), Chi-Chi earthquake (M = 7.6, Taiwan, 1999), Niigata Chuetsu earthquake (M = 6.8, Japan, 2004), Sichuan earthquake (M = 7.9, China, 2008), and Tohokuchiho Taiheiyo earthquake (M = 9.0, Japan, 2011), have shown that building damage is significantly affected by the degree of damage sustained by the building foundation, and by the interaction between the building and its foundation. This paper presents a new methodology for nonlinear dynamic analysis of the seismic performance of reinforced-concrete (RC) buildings considering the pile foundation-structure interaction. The proposed method ...