What are the Basics of Earthquake

Resistant Design?
by

The Building Seismic Safety Council

(Adapted from: Non-Technical Explanation of the National Earthquake Hazards

Reduction (NEHRP) Recommended Provisions Earthquakes (FEMA-99), Washington:
Federal Emergency Management Agency, (Revised Edition) 1995.

Lateral Load Resisting Systems

When designing a building that will be capable of withstanding an earthquake,
engineers can choose various structural components, the earthquake resistance of
which is now well-understood, and then combine them into what is known as a
complete lateral load resisting system. These structural components usually
include:

 shear walls
 braced frames
 moment resisting frames
 diaphragms
 horizontal trusses

These same elements are also basic parts of an architect's structural "vocabulary."
The choice of the appropriate lateral load resisting system for any particular building
is thus highly dependent upon the architectural concept of the building.

Of course, a building always possesses floors and a roof. But the earthquake
resistant characteristics of these basic elements is highly variable. Not only that, the
building's horizontal elements can be supported by a wide variety of wall and frame
types or wall-frame combinations, the choice of which is usually dictated by
considerations other than earthquake resistance. For instance, some buildings such
as a warehouse or a parking garage must have a large open floor space--which
means that roof and floors of such structures will not be provided with as much
vertical support from beneath as they might be otherwise.

The engineer-designer in charge of making a building earthquake resistant must

therefore choose a combination of structural elements which will most favorably
balance the demands of earthquake resistance, building cost, building use,
and architectural design.

Diaphragms
Diaphragms are horizontal
resistance elements,
generally floors and roofs
that transfer the lateral
forces between the vertical
resistance elements (shear
walls or frames). Basically,
a diaphragm acts as a
horizontal I-beam. That is, Figure 1: Horizontal Diaphragm Action
the diaphragm itself acts as the web of the beam and its edges act as flanges.

Shear Walls
Shear walls are vertical walls that are designed to receive lateral forces from
diaphragms and transmit them to the ground. The forces in these walls are
predominantly shear forces in which the fibers within the wall try to slide past one
another.

When you build a house of cards, you design a

shear wall structure, and you soon learn that
sufficient card "walls" must be placed at right
angles to one another or the house will collapse.

If you were to connect your walls together with

tape, it is easy to see that the strength of this
house of cards would be immediately become
greatly increased. This illustrates a very
important point: In general, the earthquake
resistance of any building is highly dependent
upon the connections joining the building's
larger stuctural members, such as walls, beams, Figure 2: Shear Walls
columns and floor-slabs.

Shear walls, in particular, must be strong in themselves and also strongly connected
to each other and to the horizontal diaphragms. In a simple building with shear walls
at each end, ground motion enters the building and creates inertial forces that move
the floor diaphragms. This movement is resisted by the shear walls and the forces
are transmitted back down to the foundation.

Braced Frames
Braced frames act in the same manner as shear walls, but they may offer lower
resistance depending on their details of their design and construction. Bracing
generally takes the form of steel rolled sections, circular bar sections, or tubes.
Vibration may cause the bracing to elongate or compress, in which case it will lose its
effectiveness and permit large deformations or collapse of the vertical structure.
Ductility therefore must be designed into the bracing to create a safe assembly.

Moment Resistant Frames

When seismic resistance is provided by
moment resistant frames, lateral
forces are resisted primarily by the
joints between columns and beams.
These joints become highly stressed
and the details of their construction
are very important. Moment frames
use, as a last-resort resistance
strategy, the energy absorption
obtained by permanent deformation of Figure 3: Beam-Column Joint, MR Frame
the structure prior to ultimate failure.
For this reason, moment resistant frames generally are steel structures with
bolts or welded joints in which the natural ductility of the material is of
advantage.

However, properly reinforced concrete frames that contain a large amount of steel
reinforcing are also effective as ductile frames. They will distort and retain resistance
capacity prior to failure and will not fail in a brittle manner.

Architecturally, moment resistant frames offer a certain advantage over

shear walls or braced frames because they tend to provide structures that
are much more unobstructed internally than shear wall structures, which
facilitates the design of accompanying architectural elements such as
exterior walls, partitions, and ceilings and the placement of building
contents such as furniture and loose equipment. Nevertheless, moment
resistant frames require special construction and detailing and, therefore,
are more expensive than shear walls or braced frames.

Tremor Tech, Discovery.com's site for more information and pictures

concerning the basics of earthquake resistant design (will open a new window).

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