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How to Make Your Building Earthquake Safe?
We live in a country, which has its 50% of total cover prone to damaging earthquakes. With a very high frequency of earthquakes, India has already faced a lot of devastation due to these hilarious shakings. Obviously, you cannot control theses natural calamities, but you can protect yourself and your assets from the destruction.
The recent earthquake in Nepal caused huge devastation with about 10,000 deaths and a minimum of about $5Billion Economic loss. Government figures revealed that more than 700,000 homes and other structures were damaged by the earthquake along with dozens of historical sites. Even various parts of India, including Bihar, Punjab, Uttarakhand, were hit by the same shocks, but luckily with less intensity. Reports say that this can probably happen again. SO, are your prepared?
Do you know Japan is more prone to earthquake as compared to Nepal and India? After the Japan 2011 earthquake disaster, more than 5,000 aftershocks hit Japan in the year. It is not about the earthquakes, but it’s about how to prevent such disasters from causing wide scale destruction. The Japan earthquake 2011 with 8.1 magnitude were devastating that could have been worse if it were not for the earthquake resistant building standards that all Japanese buildings follow.
What makes a building or structure fail in earthquakes?
The effect of an earthquake on the ground is like the ripples from the pebble in the pond; it creates a series of shortwaves at short intervals that can move the land up and down, side-to-side.
Buildings carry their own weight vertically (or they would fall down anyway by themselves), but they cannot necessarily resistant the side-to-side loads. These loads cause the most damage that often leads to collapsing of the entire building in the first shake itself. Further, if the shocks come in waves, the side-to-side load can be worse and some bigger buildings can vibrate like a huge turning fork until failure.
Another reason is the addition of more weight to a building at greater heights, adding floor over one and another over that. This extra weight produces great force on the structure and helps it fall.
Sometimes, buildings are built on the soft soil that can turn into quicksand when shaken about, resulting in complete sinking of buildings into the soil.The taller the building, the more are the chances for it to collapse, especially if the building can oscillate at the frequency of the shock waves.
An unreinforced brick or concrete block is the most dangerous building construction from an earthquake point of view. This is so because the walls made of bricks are stacked on top of each other and held together with mortar. The roof, which is laid across the top, has its weight carried straight down through the wall to the foundation. Due to the lateral force from an earthquake on such foundation, the walls tip over or crumble and the roof falls in like a house of cards.
How to protect the building from collapsing due to earthquake?
Engineering techniquescan aid in creating a very sound structure that can endure a modest or even strong quake. Specially engineered buildings and their foundationsare designedtoresisthigher sideways loads in order to minimize damage to the structure. Remember, the lighter the structure, the less are the loads. The roof, floor, walls and the partitionsshould be built from a lightweight material. To obtain the sideways resistance from the walls, make sure these walls go equally in both the directions and must be strong enough to bear the loads. It would be significant to tie these walls in to any framing and reinforce to take load in their weakest direction.
Make your buildings ductile and flexible. During earthquakes, stiff buildings would go down but the flexible ones would sway and come back to their original position.
Hope you enjoyed the article if you need more information contact NK Sharma Group. We look forwards for your suggestions in the comment section.
