Earthquake Resistant Design of

Structures
Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures

Lecture by:
Er. Bimal Bhandari
ME Structure
 Seismic Waves
i. Body Waves( P and S waves)
P-waves
P waves also known as primary, compressional, or longitudinal waves involve
successive compression or rarefaction of the material through which they pass.
P wave can travel through Solid and fluids.
S waves
• Also known as secondary, shear or transverse waves,causing shearing
deformations as they travel through materials
• The motion of an individual particle is perpendicular to the direction of S
wave travel.
• Cannot pass through Fluid.
Note:P waves travel faster than other waves so is the first to arrive at
particular site.
ii. Surface Waves
• Results from the interaction between body waves and surface of the earth.
• More prominent at a distance far from the source of earthquake.
• At distances greater than about twice the thickness of the earths crust,
surface waves, rather than body waves will produce peak ground motions.
Rayleigh waves
• Similar to the waves produced by a rock thrown in the pond.
• It moves the ground up and down, and side to side in same direction as the
wave is moving.
• Most of the shaking felt from an earthquake is due to Rayleigh waves
• Produce by interaction of p- and SV waves with earth surface.
Love Waves
• Produced by interaction of SH waves with a soft surficial layer and have no
vertical component of particle.
 Location Of Earthquake
• Focus :- The point at which rupture begins and the first seismic waves
originate is called focus or hypocentre. Although the fault rupture can
extend to the ground surface, the focus is located at some focal depth
(hypocentral depth) below the ground surface.
• Epicenter :- The point on the ground surface directly above the focus is
called epicenter.
• Epicentral distance :- The distance on the ground surface between the
observer and the epicenter is called epicentral distance.
• Focal distance/hypocentral distance:- The distance between the observer
and the focus.
(Kramer,1996)
• Since P-wave travel faster the S wave, they will arrive first at seismograph,

Where ∆tp/s =difference in time between p ans s waves.

Assignment 1
 SIZE OF EARTHQUAKE

Earthquake Intensity:-
Qualitative description of the effects of the earthquake, as evidenced by
damage and human reactions at locations.

Earthquake Magnitude:-Quantitative measure of the size of earthquake.

Richter Local Magnitude
• For shallow,epicentral distance<600 km
• ML = log (A/Ao) ,where A is the maximum amplitude in micrometer.
• Surface Wave Magnitude:-At large epicentral distances, body waves have
usually been attenuated and sufficiently scattered that the resulting motion
is dominated by surface waves.

• Where, ∆ = epicentral distance of seismometer measured in degrees.(360

degree corresponding to the circumference of the earth.

• Body wave magnitude:-

• Moment Magnitude:-

Where, Mo= seismic moment in dyne-cm.

Where μ = rupture strength of the material along the fault.

A = rupture area
D = average amount of slip
• Earthquake Energy
logE = =11.8 + 1.5 Ms
Where E is expressed in ergs.
Seismograph : Instrument that records the shaking of
earth during earthquake.
Seismogram: The record of the earthquake made by
seismograph is seismogram.
• Numericals
Assuming that a seismograph located 1200 km from the
epicenter of an earthquake records a maximum ground
displacement of 15.6 mm from surface waves having a period of
2 secs.Determine the surface wave magnitude.
Solution:
Circumference of earth = 4 x107 m (360 degree)
Distance to seismgraph = 1200 km
∆ = 1.2 x106 x (360)/(4x107)
= 10.80

From question, A 15.6mm = 15600 μm

Ms = log15600 + 1.66log10.8 + 2 = 7.9
Assuming that during a major earthquake the depth of fault rupture is
estimated to be 15 km, the length of surface faulting is determined to be
600km, and the average slip along the fault is 2.5m. Determine the moment
magnitude. Use Shear modulus equal to 3x1010 N/m2 .
Mo = μAD = 3x1010 x (15x600x1000x1000)x2.5
= 6.75 x1020 Nm
Mw = -6+ 0.67Mo =-6+ 0.67xMo = 8
 Strong Ground Motions
• The great majority of the earthquakes are so weak that they cannot
be felt or even detected without special instruments.Such
microseismic activity is more important to seismologists than
engineers.
• Earthquake/Structural Engineers are more interested in strong
ground motions( motion of sufficent strength to affect people and
environment).
• For engineering purpose three characteristics of earthquake ground
motions are of primary significance.
1. Amplitude 2. Frequency Content 3. Duration of motion
• A number of different ground motion parameter has been
proposed each of which provides information about one or more of
this characteristics.
 Ground Motion Parameters
1. Amplitude Parameters
• Most common way of describing the ground motion is by time
history (acceleration vs Time, velocity vs time, displacement vs
time).
• The measure of amplitude is on the basis of PGA(peak ground
acceleration),PGV(peak ground velocity,PGD(peak ground
displacement)
• PGA(PHA and PVA) - Most commonly used measure of the
amplitude of the particular ground motions is PHA.
• The PHA for a given component of motion is the largest absolute
value of the horizontal acceleration obtained from the
accelerogram.
• E.g. For Gorkha Earthquake 2015,the KATNP station reports that
the 7.8M event has a horizontal peak ground acceleration(PHA) of
0.164g at epicentral distance of 59.9km(Whitney and Agarwal).
• Vertical accelerations have gained less attention than horizontal
accelerations in EQ Engineering.
• The margin of safety in against gravity induced static vertical
forces usually provide adequate resistance to dynamic forces
induced by vertical accelerations.
• For the design of important structures like dam, nuclear stations, its
value should be considered.
• The value of PVA ranges from 1/2 to 2/3 of PHA.

PGV
It can be determined by integrating peak ground acceleration.

PGD
Used to characterize the lower frequency compneents of EQ motion.
Can be obtained from double integration of acceleration records.
• Frequency Content Parameters
• Frequency content describes how the amplitude of motion is
distributed among different frequency.
• Dynamic response of the objects such as buildings, bridges, soil
deposit etc is very sensitive to the frequency to which they are
loaded.
• So, the ground motion can’t be defined without describing the
frequency content parameter and fourier series concept can be
used to define the frequency.
• The frequency content is often described using Fourier Spectra,
Power Spectra, Response Spectra.
• Fourier Spectra- Plot of fourier amplitude vs frequency.
• It shows how the amplitude of the motion is distributed with
respected to frequency(period).
 Assignment 2
• Download the time history for the Gorkha
Earthquake and plot the Velocity vs time,
displacement vs time.
• Also plot the fourier amplitude spectra for Gorkha
Earthquake using Fourier Transform.
• Duration
Ground motions with high peak accelerations are usually, but not always,
more destructive than motions with lower peak accelerations.
Very high peak accelerations that last for only a very short period of time may
cause little damage to structures.
Degradation of stiffness and strength of structures and soils aresensitive to
number of loads or stress reversals that occur during an earthquake.
A motion of short duration may not produce enough load reversals for
damage.On the other hand, the motions with moderate amplitude and long
durations can produce enough load reversals causing damages.

Estimation of duration of strong ground motion

a. Bracketed duration
Time between the first and last exceedence of a 0.05g in acceleragram.
• Determine the bracketed duration for the ground
motion shown.
• Ans: 9.8 Sec
SEISMIC HAZARD ANALYSIS