Earthquake

resistance Building
Planning
Outlin
e
▶ What are Earthquake?
▶ Precautions while planning
▶ Non engineered masonary structure
▶ Failure mechanisms of masonary building
Water tank
Precautions while
planning

▶ Lightness
▶ Symmetry
▶ Regularity
▶ Simplicity
▶ Continuity
▶ Size of
building
1.
Lightness:

▶ Since the earthquake force is a function of mass, the building

shall be as light as possible.
▶ Heavier structure means large inertia force and collapse these
structures results in heavier damage and loss of lives.
▶ Thus, roofs and upper storey of buildings, in particular, should be
designed as light as possible.
2.
Symmetry
▶ The building as a whole or its various blocks should be kept
symmetrical about both the axes.
▶ The asymmetrical buildings are subjected to twist or torsion
during earthquakes.
▶ Twist in buildings causes different portions at the same floor level
to move horizontally by different amounts.
▶ Irregularities of mass, strength and stiffness in a building can result
in significant torsional response.
▶ Torsion arises from eccentricity In the building layout.
3. Regularity:

▶ The building should have a simple rectangular plan. It is seen that simple shapes
behave better during earthquake than complex shapes like L,T,E,H,U and C etc.
▶ It is seen that during earthquakes the building with re-entrant corners have suffered
great damage.
▶ Torsional effects of ground motion are pronounced in long, narrow rectangular blocks.
▶ Separation of a large building into several blocks may be required so as to obtain
symmetry and regularity of each block.
4.
Simplicity:

▶ Ornamentation involving large cornices, vertical or horizontal

cantilever projections, facia stones and the like are dangerous and
undesirable from a seismic viewpoint.Simplicity is the best
approach.
▶ Where ornamentation is insisted upon, it must be reinforced with
steel which should be properly embedded or tied into the main
structure of the building.
5.Continuity:

▶ Any deviation or discontinuity in this load transfer path results in poor

performance of the building.
▶ Building with vertical setback (like the hotel building with a few storeys wider
than the rest) cause a sudden jump in earthquake forces at the level of
discontinuity.
▶ Some building have reinforced concrete walls to carry the earthquake loads to
the foundations.
6. Size of building

▶ Buildings of great length or plan area may not respond to earthquakes in the
way calculated.
▶ Buildings that are two long in plan may be subjected to different
earthquake movements simultaneously at the two ends, leading to
disastrous results.
▶ As an alternate such building can be broken into a number of separate
square buildings.
▶ In a building with large plan area like warehouse , the horizontal seismic
forces can be excessive to be carried by column and walls.
 Non-engineered masonry
structure
▶ The advantage of masonry construction are as
follows:
▶ Use of locally available materials.
▶ Need of less skilled labour.
▶ Easy and cheap repair.
▶ Good insulation against heat and sound.
▶ Less formwork.
▶ Possibility ofeasy alteration after construction.
The poor performance of masonry building in
earthquake is because of the following reasons:

▶ The material is brittle and its strength degrade due to repetitive loadings.
▶ Masonry has very low tensile strength and low shear strength specially with poor
mortars.
▶ Masonry has great weight because of thick walls. Consequently the inertia force are
large.
▶ Large stiffness of the material, which leads to large response to earthquake waves of
short natural period.
▶ The wall to wall connection and roof to wall connection is generally weak.
▶ In masonry construction, stress concentration occurs at corners of doors and windows.
▶ Poor construction quality because of use of locally available materials and unskilled
labours.
Failure Mechanisms of Masonry
Buildings:

▶ A masonry building may fail in various ways under the action of

earthquake forces. Some of the common modes of failure are:
▶ Out of plane failure
▶ In plane failure
▶ Connection failure
▶ Diaphragm failure
▶ Failure due to opening in walls
▶ Non-structural components failure
1. Out of plane failure

▶ The force acting on the mass of the wall tends to overturn it.
▶ The seismic resistance of the wall is by virtue of its weight and tensile
strength of mortar and it is very small.
▶ This wall will collapse by overturning under the ground motion.
In plane failure:
▶ The free standing wall fixed on the ground is subjected to ground motion on its own
plane.
▶ The damage modes if an unreinforced shear wall depend on the length to width
ration of the wall.
▶ A wall with small length to width ratio will generally develop a horizontal
crack due to bending tension and then slide due to shearing.
▶ A wall with moderate length-to-width ratio and bounding frame diagonally
cracks due to shearing.
▶ A wall with large length-to-width ratio, may develop diagonal tension at both
sides and horizontal cracks at the middle.
Connection Failure

▶ The ground shakes simultaneously in the vertical and two horizontal directions
during earthquakes .
▶ However, the horizontal vibrations are the most damaging to normal masonry buildings.
▶ To ensure good seismic performance, all wall must be jointed properly to the adjacent walls.
▶ In this way, walls loaded in their weak direction can take advantage of good
lateral resistance offered by walls loaded in their strong directions.
▶ Further, walls also need to be tied to the roof and foundation to preserve their overall
integrity.
Diaphragm
Failure

▶ Consider a complete wall with enclosure with a roof on the top subjected to
earthquake force acting along with x-axis as shown in fig.
▶ The roof/slabs will transfer the earthquake force to the walls, causing
shearing and bending them.
▶ To transfer the forces the roof must have enough strength in bending in the
horizontal plane.
▶ This action is called diaphragm action.
▶ The roofs and floors which are rigid and flat are bonded to the walls properly, do not
show any sign of diaphragm failure.
Failure due to
opening in walls:

▶ Openings are necessary in a building but the location and size of the
opening in walls affect the performance of masonry buildings during
earthquake,
▶ During earthquake shaking, inertia forces act n the strong direction
of some walls and in weak direction of others.
▶ Walls shaken in weak direction seek support from other walls.
▶ Walls B1 and B2 seek support from walls A1 and A2 for shaking in
the direction
shown in fig.
▶ Thus, walls transfer loads to each other at their junctions.
▶ Hence, the masonry courses from the walls meeting at corners
must have good interlocking.
▶ For this reason, opening near the wall corners are detrimental to
good seismic
Non-structural components
failure
▶ The non-structural damage is that due to which the strength and
stability of the building is not affected.
▶ Such damage occurs very frequently even under moderate intensities of
earthquakes.
▶ Some non-structural damages are:
▶ Cracking and overturning of masonry parapets, roof chimney, large
cantilever balconies and cornices.
▶ Falling of plaster from walls and ceiling.
▶ Cracking and overturning of partition walls.
▶ Cracking of glass panels.
▶ Falling of loosely placed objects, overturning of cupboards.
Water tank
▶ Elevated water tank contain huge mass t height supported on column or
circular RCC shft.
▶ It is an example of single degree of freedom.
▶ As large mass is supported at height, centroid of mass will be higher.
▶ During earthquakes inertia force produced due to mass will be higher.
▶ During earthquke inertia force produced due to mass of water and earthquake
acceleration my cause overturning of the tank. Inertia force= Mass * acceleration
▶ Higher the mass, more will be the inertia force acting on the water tank, i.e. mass
of water.
▶ The columns or RCC shaft acts as stiffening member, providing stiffness
resistance during earthquake.
▶ The location of the water tank on roof slab should be carefully decided.
▶ It should be centrally located on the building.
▶ Water tank on edge or corner of a building may cause imbalance of mass, resulting
in overturning of tank.
▶ For small residential buildings, light weight PVC tanks are preferred to reduce mass of
the building.
THANK YOU