Vasantdada Patil Pratishthan’s

Manohar Phalke College of Architecture

Sion, Mumbai – 400022

Name of Student

Varad Agawane - 01
Harshal Narkar - 26
Sumant Patkar - 28
Shubham Patil - 32
Manthan Sutar – 38
TOS - Report on

Earthquake Resistance Structure & Techniques (Case Study)

Under the Guidance of

Prof. Swami M. Baswaraj

Submitted to

University of Mumbai
Department of Architecture
 Earthquake resistant construction techniques

Introduction:
Earthquake-resistant or aseismic structures are designed to protect buildings to some or
greater extent from earthquakes. While no structure can be entirely immune to damage from
earthquakes, the goal of earthquake-resistant construction is to erect structures that fare better
during Seismic activity than their conventional counterparts. According to building codes,
earthquake-resistant structures are intended to withstand the largest earthquake of a certain
probability that is likely to occur at their location. This means the loss of life should be
minimized by preventing collapse of the buildings for rare earthquakes while the loss of the
functionality should be limited for more frequent ones. To combat earthquake destruction, the
only method available to ancient architects was to build their landmark structures to last, often by
making them excessively stiff and strong. Currently, there are several design philosophies in
earthquake engineering, making use of experimental results, computer simulations and
observations from past earthquakes to offer the required performance for the seismic threat at the
site of interest. These range from appropriately sizing the structure to be strong and ductile
enough to survive the shaking with an acceptable damage, to equipping it with base isolation or
using structural vibration control technologies to minimize any forces and deformations. While
the former is the method typically applied in most earthquake-resistant structures, important
facilities, landmarks, and cultural heritage buildings use the more advanced techniques of
isolation or control to survive strong shaking with minimal damage. Throughout history, we have
built impressive structures and cities only for them to encounter the forces of nature. Earthquakes
are one of the Earth’s most destructive forces — the seismic waves throughout the ground can
destroy buildings, take lives, and costs tremendous amounts of money for loss and repair.

Earthquake resistant techniques:

1. Floating Foundation:
The levitating or floating foundation separates the substructure of a building from its
superstructure.
One way of doing this is by floating a building above its foundation on lead-rubber bearings that
comprise a solid lead core covered in alternating layers of rubber and steel. The bearings are
attached to the building and its foundation with the help of steel plates. So, when an earthquake
occurs, the floating foundation can move without moving the structure above it.
In Japan this base isolation system works at a whole new level. Their design allows buildings to
float mid-air. The system levitates, keeping the building on a cushion of air. The system has in-
built sensors for detection of seismic activity and these sensors communicate with the air
compressor that creates the layer of air between the building and its base.

2. Shock Absorption:
Like the shock absorbers used in vehicles, buildings also make use of this technology.
This earthquake resistant technology helps buildings slow down and reduce the magnitude of
vibratory motions. Ideally shock absorbers should be placed at each level of the building – one
end attached to the beam and the other end to the column. Each comprises a piston head that
moves inside a cylinder full of silicone oil. During earthquakes, the horizontal motion of building
will make the piston push against the oil, transforming mechanical energy from the quake to heat.
3. Rocking Core-wall:
Modern high-rise buildings use this technique to improve seismic resistance at a low cost. To
make this work, a reinforced concrete core is set through the heart of the structure, surrounded by
elevator banks. Many modern high-rise buildings use this technique to increase seismic
resistance in an affordable way. It works most effectively when used together with base isolation.
For base isolation, elastomeric bearings are built with alternating layers of steel and natural
rubber/neoprene. The bearing thus created has low horizontal stiffness and vertical rigidity. The
combination is highly effective, cost-friendly, and simple to implement.

4. Pendulum Power:
The pendulum power technique works by suspending a huge mass near the top of the structure.
This mass is supported by steel cables and viscous fluid dampers are placed between the mass
and the building that it protects. In case of any seismic activity, the pendulum moves in the
opposite direction to balance the energy. Each of the pendulums are tuned to sync with the
natural frequency of the structure and these systems are called tuned mass dampers. Their goal is
to counter resonance and reduce the structure’s dynamic response.
4. Symmetry, Diaphragms and Cross-Bracing:
Generally, one common criterion for seismic designs is symmetry. Seismic risks of asymmetrical
designs are higher. L-Shaped, T-Shaped, and split-level structures may be more visually
appealing, but they are also prone to torsion. Thus, engineers design symmetrical structures to
keep the forces equally distributed through the structure and limit ornamental elements like
cornices, cantilever projections etc.
An earthquake has a significant lateral force. Seismic designing counteracts these forces in both
horizontal and vertical structural systems. Diaphragms are integral to horizontal structures – such
as floors of a building or roof. Engineers design each diaphragm on its own deck and strengthen
it horizontally so it can distribute sideways forces with vertical structure parts.
With vertical structures, engineers have several approaches. Braced frames are often used in
building walls. Braced frames rely on trusses for resisting sideways motion. Cross-bracing is a
technique that uses two diagonal members in an X-shape to build wall trusses and it is a popular
technique to build earthquake resistant structures.

What causes earthquakes to occur?

Earthquakes occur when masses of rock in Earth's crust slip and slide against one another. This
kind of movement is most common along a fault, a break in a body of rock that can extend for
miles or even hundreds of miles. When pieces of crustal rock suddenly slip and move, they
release enormous amounts of energy, which then propagates through the crust as seismic waves.
At the Earth's surface, these waves cause the ground to shake and vibrate, sometimes violently.
Seismic waves are further classified in two broad categories, body waves and surface waves.
Body waves, which include P and S waves, travel through the Earth's interior. The P waves
resemble sound waves & the S waves resemble water waves. P waves travel through both solids
and liquids, while S waves only travel through solids. After an earthquake strikes, P waves ripple
through the planet first, followed by S waves. Then come the slower surface waves, what
geologists refer to as Love and Rayleigh waves. Both kinds move the ground horizontally, but
only Rayleigh waves move the ground vertically, too. Surface waves form long wave trains that
travel great distances and cause most of the shaking and much of the damage associated with an
earthquake. If earthquakes only moved the ground vertically, buildings might suffer little damage
because all structures are designed to withstand vertical forces, those associated with gravity to
some extent. But the rolling waves of an earthquake, especially Love waves, exert extreme
horizontal forces on standing structures. These forces cause lateral accelerations, which are
measured as G-forces. During an earthquake, a building will tend to vibrate around one
frequency known as its natural, or fundamental, frequency. When the building and ground share
the building's natural frequency, they are said to be in resonance which is a bad sign for the
structure. Resonance amplifies the effects of an earthquake, causing buildings to suffer more
damage. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake, for example, can produce an acceleration of 1 G (980.665
cm/s2) and a peak velocity of 40 inches (102 centimetres) per second. Such a sudden movement
to the side (almost as if someone violently shoved you) creates enormous stresses for a building's
structural elements, including beams, columns, walls, and floors, as well as the connectors that
hold these elements together. If those stresses are large enough, the building can collapse or
suffer crippling damage. Another critical factor is the substrate of a house or skyscraper.
Buildings constructed on bedrock often perform well because the ground is firm. Structures that
sit atop soft or filled-in soil often fail completely. The greatest risk in this situation is a
phenomenon known as liquefaction, which occurs when loosely packed, waterlogged soils
temporarily behave like liquids, causing the ground to sink or slide and the buildings along with
it.

Earthquake resistant technique used in Burj Khalifa:

1. Design:
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the architecture firm behind the design and engineering of the
tower. The design team developed what has become known as a spiralling “Y” shaped plan
(shown in fig 1), which was used to shape the structural core of the building. Key considerations
included the impact of wind forces and ‘constructability’, architecture cannot for practical
construction considerations. The design employs a ‘buttressed core’, which has each wing of the
building buttressing the others via a six-sided central core.

(Fig 1. Plan of Burj Khalifa)

It is this central core that provides the structure’s torsional resistance. The design of wall and
corridor intersections means that all of the vertical concrete is used to support both gravity and
lateral loads. As the building spirals in height, the wings set back to provide many different floor
plates. These setbacks also have the advantage of providing a different width to the tower for
each differing floor plate. This stepping and shaping of the tower has the effect of disrupting the
flow of the wind over the height of the building. It features glass, stainless steel and polished
dark stones, together with silver travertine flooring, Venetian stucco walls, handmade rugs and
stone flooring.
2. Foundation:
The tower’s superstructure is supported by a large reinforced concrete mat, which is in turn
supported by 192 bored reinforced concrete piles. The mat is 3.7m thick and was constructed in
four separate pours totalling 12,500 cubic metres (m³) of concrete. Bauer Spezialtiefbau, with
Middle East Foundations, took on much of the piling work, which required bores to be sunk for
cast in-situ piles, to a depth of 43 metres.
Around 45,000m³ of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes, were poured for the
foundations – that’s equivalent to 18 Olympic sized swimming pools – with 192 piles running to
a depth of over 50m. A high density, low permeability concrete was used in the foundations, as
well as a cathodic protection system under the mat. This is an effort to counter the effects of the
highly corrosive ground water. Bores for the 192 deep piles were sunk in 2004. Each of them was
designed to be cast in situ, and as such needed to be very deep. Ground conditions at the Burj site
were favourable – the soft, but not unstable, soil proved easy to dig into.

(Fig 2. Foundation System of Burj Khalifa)

3. Lateral load resisting system:

The consideration loads on the tower The tower’s lateral load resisting system consists of high
performance, reinforced concrete ductile core walls linked to the exterior reinforced concrete
columns through a series of reinforced concrete shear wall panels at the mechanical levels. The
core walls vary in thickness from 1300mm to 500mm. The core walls are typically linked
through a series of 800mm to 1100mm deep reinforced concrete link beams at every level. These
composite ductile link beams typically consist of steel shear plates, or structural steel built- up I-
shaped beams, with shear studs embedded in the concrete section. The link beam width typically
matches the adjacent core wall thickness. At the top of the center reinforced concrete core wall, a
very tall spire tops the building, making it the tallest tower in the world in all categories. The
lateral load resisting system of the spire consists of a diagonal structural steel bracing system
from level 156 to the top of the spire at approximately 750 meter above the ground. The pinnacle
consists of structural steel pipe section varying from 2100mm diameter x 60mm thick at the base
to 1200mm diameter x 30mm thick at the top (828m).
4. Gravity Load Management:
The consideration loads on the tower: Gravity load management is also critical as it has direct
impact on the overall efficiency and performance of the tower and it should be addressed at the
early design stage, during the development and integration of the architectural and structural
design concept. The limitations on the wall thicknesses (500-600mm) of the center core and the
wing walls thickness (600mm) allowed art of working with concrete, the gravity load to flow
freely into the centre corridor Spine web walls (650mm) to the hammer head walls and nose
columns for maximum resistance to lateral loads. Core wall elevation Wing B core wall elevation
Set back level Outrigger wall Wind Engineering Management The consideration loads on the
tower The wind engineering management of Burj Khalifa was achieved by: Varying the building
shape along the height while continuing, without interruption, the building gravity and lateral
load resisting system. reducing the floor plan along the height, thus effectively tapering the
building profile. Using the building shapes to introduce spoiler type of effects along the entire
height of the tower, including the pinnacle, to reduce the dynamic wind excitations. Change the
orientation of the tower in response to wind directionality, thus stiffening the structure normal to
the worst wind direction. Importance of wind loads Building height Relationship between
importance of wind and height Earthquake Analysis: The consideration loads on the tower:
Dubai outside the scope of the seismic activity. Liquefaction analysis of Burj Khalifa soil showed
that it is not a problem Burj Khalifa is located in Dubai, which is a UBC97 Zone 2a seismic
region (with a seismic zone factor Z = 0.15 and soil profile Sc). Thus, Earthquake loads did not
govern the concrete tower design (wind loads govern) but it does govern the design of the steel
spire above the concrete tower. However, Burj Khalifa resisted earthquake of M5.8 magnitude
that occurred in southern Iran on July 20, 2010. While the magnitude of this earthquake was
diminished when it reached Dubai and was relatively small (less than 1milli- g at BK site).