International Journal of the Physical Sciences Vol. 6(1), pp.

27-34, 4 January, 2011

Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/IJPS
ISSN 1992 - 1950 ©2011 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

A conceptual design approach to manage large

earthquake forces
Yusuf Ate
Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey. E-mail: yates@sdu.edu.tr. Tel: +90 544 592 5553.
Fax: +90 246 2370953.
Accepted 07 December 2010

Design is an area over which the engineer has the most control, both technically and financially, in
creating structures, which can withstand destructive forces of earthquakes. The most widely applied
philosophy is to design for earthquake-resistant structures with the idea that stronger and stronger
building materials are needed to resist larger and larger forces from earthquakes. This approach may
be adequate when designing for protection against small earthquakes, but has serious shortcomings
when designing for large earthquakes, as is evident from many after-earthquake scenes. In this article,
a force-management approach is illustrated where the emphasis is on management of the earthquake
forces. The concepts of stress concentration, dispersement and re-direction, and the shape of the
structure, play a significant role in this new approach. Using numerical modeling results and field data,
it is shown that the shape of buildings can be designed to disperse the earthquake forces on impact
minimizing the stress concentration in the buildings, and greatly improving the overall safety.

Key words: Design, earthquakes, shape, stress distribution, building safety.

INTRODUCTION

In many regions around the world, earthquakes and their
sheer destruction have been a major cause of loss of
lives and infrastructures. Many disastrous earthquakes
have been reported around the world. For example, over
17,000 people lost their lives in the 1999 zmit
earthquake of M = 7 in Turkey (Atabey, 2000; Gülhan and
Güney, 2000). Atabey (2000) also reported that about
120,000 buildings were severely damaged during this
earthquake. Many other places on the globe are
vulnerable to the forces of earthquakes (Spence, 2007;
James, 2006; Shedlock et al., 2000; Uitto, 1998;
Ambraseys and Finkel, 1995). Large earthquakes (M 6)
are responsible for the majority of the damage. According
to Spence (2007), almost 80% of about 1 million deaths
since 1960 have been caused by just ten largest
earthquakes (Table 1).
Studies about earthquakes are ongoing around the
world and significant progress has been made in
understanding their mechanism of occurrence, effects on
structures and probability of occurrence in a given region
(Aki, 1989; Vere-jones, 1970, Hagiwara, 1974; Bolt 2003;
Keilis-Borok and Rotwain, 2002; Sezen et al., 2003).
However, it is virtually impossible to forecast the exact
time of happening of an earthquake and it’s magnitude,
depth or duration quite well before the event. The
prediction of the Haicheng earthquake (M=7.3) that
occurred in north-east China on 4 February 1975, where
people have been warned and measures taken for civil
protection (Adams, 2006), can be noted here as an
exception. While research and development is ongoing in
all of these fronts, it is crucial to take precautions, starting
from the areas over which the human has more control
on reducing the damages from catastrophic earthquakes.
In the area of design approach, it is viable to design
structures to eliminate or minimize the level of damage,
and save lives.
There are some well-known methods that can be used
to reduce the level of damage to structures (Coburn et
al., 1995; Gülkan, 2005). For example, the level of
damage can be reduced by selecting building sites
appropriately. It is known that a building on rock has
better chance of survival and/or sustains less damage
than a building whose foundations are in soil, and even
better chance than the building on soil with high water
table (liquefaction risk) (Mollamahmutoglu et al., 2003).
An underground structure is similarly better off than a
28 Int. J. Phys. Sci.

Table 1. Large earthquakes occurred since 1960 and their damage (Spence, 2007).

Earthquake People
Local Magnitude
Event Country Date Killed Injured Homeless
Time (Mw USGS)
Ancash Peru 31/05/1970 15:23 7.9 66 794 143 331 -
Guatemala Guatemala 04/07/1976 03:03 7.5 23 000 77 000 1 166 000
Tangshan China 28/07/1976 03:42 7.5 242 419 164 581 -
Armenia Russia 07/12/1988 11:41 6.8 25 000 12 000 530 000
Manjil Iran 21/06/1990 00:30 7.7 40 000 105 000 105 000
Kocaeli Turkey 17/08/1999 03:02 7.6 17 437 43 953 600 000
Bhuj India 26/01/2001 08:46 7.7 13 800 166 812 1 790 000
Bam Iran 26/12/2003 5:26 6.6 32 000 26 628 45 000
Indenosia, Thailand,
Indian ocean 26/12/2004 07:58 9.3 283 100 41 810 1 033 464
Sri Lanka
Kashmir Pakistan 08/10/2006 08:50 7.6 73 338 69 142 2 800 000

surface structure directly above it (Sharma and Judd,
1991; Ate et al., 1994; Wetmiller et al., 1996). However,
as is evident from after-earthquake scenes, these
measures are not enough to protect structures from large
earthquakes and further means of protection are needed.
This article explores beyond these measures and
concerns with the structures in similar sites and built with
similar materials; so that the emphasis is on one factor:
The implication of an overall design approach on the
overall safety of the structure. The purpose is to provide
an approach where the designers and/or architects are
more concentrated on how to minimize the forces that a
building element experiences and thus, how to manage
and tolerate large earthquake forces that otherwise could
not be tolerated.
The shape of a building plays a crucial role in this
approach. The hypothesis is that by using proper shapes
in design, the on-coming forces to the structure are
distributed among the structural elements, thus managed
(force-management) approach, rather than exposing the
elements to the total impact of the force, thus unmanaged
(resist-full-force) approach. Designing with the first
approach provides a dramatic improvement in structural
safety.
THE CONCEPT OF STRESS DISTRIBUTION AND
SURVIVABILITY OF STRUCTURES DURING AN EARTHQUAKE
During an earthquake, the collapse of a building starts as a result of
stresses being concentrated at a location where they grow larger
than the strength of the material in this location. If one could
distribute the oncoming forces equally over the building elements
(that is, average them out), then most of the buildings would survive
a large earthquake with minimum damage. This occurs because, by
averaging the on-coming forces over many elements of the
building, the maximization of stresses in certain localities would be
prevented, the stress in these localities remains below the strength
of the materials and components, and the failure initiation, which
could progress into a total collapse otherwise, could be avoided.
This avoidance is possible by employing certain shapes in building
design such that the on-coming waves (forces) are dispersed away
from the building first, and then the remaining ones are distributed
appropriately throughout the building (Figure 1).
As a result of this distribution, the building elements would ‘see’
less of a force and building survival is improved; otherwise, based
on the resist-full-force philosophy, the engineer has to design for
much ‘stronger’ components. This will help to a certain extent
against smaller earthquakes (M 6), but as is evident from the after-
earthquake scenes (e.g., Kocaeli, Turkey), it does not provide a
good solution to the problem. By employing the earthquake-
resistant approach, one needs to design all elements of the building
based on maximum stress to avoid collapse. Thus, this approach
relies heavily on the materials and construction techniques for the
stability of the building during an earthquake. While it is possible to
employ stronger and stronger materials, it has certain crucial
disadvantages. First of all these materials would cost more, and
secondly stronger material is a stiffer material; and using stiff
materials for earthquake design is generally not recommended for
the reason that it cannot stand the forces generated by large
earthquakes. According to the approach most commonly used, the
building needs to sway to some degree if it is to accommodate the
heavy forces. On the other hand, because the earthquake-tolerant
design (manage the forces first approach) aims for dispersion of the
forces first, it does not rely on as strong materials or the necessity
of swaying.
The following three multi-disciplinary examples illustrate stress
distribution and its role in survival of different surface and
subsurface structures during an earthquake. The first example
illustrates damage in some apartment blocks of similar size, but
having different orientation to the main earthquake wave direction.
It is postulated that the apartment blocks of the same size oriented
in different direction from different shapes under the same
earthquake forces and create an opportunity to examine the effect
of shape. In these blocks, the level of damage is quite different
depending on shape. Here, the buildings that have a larger area
facing the earthquake wave direction suffer the most damage. The
second example compares the stability of three different tunnels
excavated in the same stress environment (force field). The tunnels
are constructed using similar technology. The main difference
between them is that they have three different shapes. In this same
environment, while one tunnel exhibits fracturing right away and
develops v-shaped notches over time, others can remain quite
stable. In the third and last example, classic structures, which

Figure 1. Two force-managing, smooth-shaped
structures (top) compared with two force resisting,
barrier-type structures (bottom).
endure severe forces due to their harsh environment, are examined
for their shape and stress-distribution relation and survival under
these conditions.
EXAMPLES/RESULTS
Example 1: Shape and damage level in apartment
blocks during and earthquake
The level of earthquake damage to buildings can be
differentiated based on the shape of the structures.
Lekkas (2002) reports on damage inflicted on multi-story
buildings in Ceyhan during the Adana (Turkey)
earthquake, which severely hit the broader area:
‘..More specifically, a series of twenty rectangular-based
apartment blocks, used for housing purposes have been
built at the eastern sector of the city. All of them are
identical in type and form, but are oriented in two different
ways. Half of them are oriented along the NE-SW
direction and the other half is perpendicular to the former,
oriented NW-SE. Among the striking features of those
buildings were the elongated supporting columns, whose
long side was perpendicular to the long side of the
building.., that is to say, NE-SW supporting columns for
the NW-SE oriented apartment blocks and vice versa. Of
all the apartment blocks, the ones that collapsed were
those oriented NESW (with NW-SE supporting columns).
On the contrary, no collapse was observed at the NW-SE
oriented buildings (With NE-SW supporting columns).”
Ate 29
Lekkas et al. (2002) went on to conclude that the
difference was due to “(i) the orientation of the long side
of the buildings in relation to the epicentre and (ii) the
increased strength of the elongated supporting columns
along the direction parallel to their long side. The ones
that were oriented parallel to the direction of the seismic
wave propagation withstood the shock, while the others
did not.“
The damage and orientation relationship that Lakkas et
al. (2002) described, can also be explained in terms of
the building shape such that the orientation, which is
parallel to the direction of earthquake has a shape that
can tolerate the earthquake shocks because it has lesser
of an wave-impact area and more of an area where the
waves can be directed along or dispersed. The apartment
blocks that are perpendicular to the earthquake waves
receive the full force and must resist the waves as it has
no feature to redirect or disperse the waves. In other
words, the buildings that have larger areas facing the
earthquake wave direction suffer the most damage. To
account for a vertical ground motion, the shape factor can
be considered in foundations design as well.
Example 2: Shape and stability of underground
openings
Generally, design of underground structures, such as
tunnels, starts with the determination of vertical forces
that are largely due to gravity, and horizontal forces that
are largely due to the tectonic movements in the earth.
Once these forces are known, initial determination of the
shape of tunnel is made. The process may be iterative to
consider the size required for the use of the tunnel, but
ultimately the shape determines the level of stress
concentration on the boundary of the tunnel. The
comparison of stresses and the strength of the rock
determine the stability of the tunnel at specific locations.
In tunnels with long service life, rectangular-shaped
tunnels are avoided; or soon, the corners will start to
collapse. This is due to concentration of stresses in these
areas, which can reach levels that are many times larger
than original in-situ stresses, which existed before
opening the tunnel. The concentrated forces on corners
are usually compressive and their magnitudes could
exceed the strength of the rock.
Figure 2 shows stress distributions on the boundaries
of three shapes representing three structures of similar
sizes. All three are subjected to a 150 MPa far-field force.
The first shape (Figure 2A) is rectangular prism, 5 m wide
and 20 m long. The second shape (Figure 2B) is a 5 m in
diameter and 20 m cylindrical body, and the third figure
(Figure 2C) represents an elliptical body, 5 m wide and
20 m long. Stress distribution is calculated using the
Examine 2D (Rocscience, 2008) program, which is based
on boundary element method. The height for all three
30 Int. J. Phys. Sci.

Figure 2. Stress distribution around three different shapes.

 Ate 31

(a) Circular opening without support shortly after opening (crumbling at the roof and floor)

(b) Circular opening sometime after opening (c) Elliptical opening (no failure)

Figure 3. Shape dependant stability conditions (a and b) Circular (c) Elliptical (Pictures from the
Underground Research Laboratory, Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada).

shapes is perpendicular to the paper.
As displayed in Figure 2, the maximum compressive
stress concentration generated on the surface of the
rectangular prism-shaped structure is 340 MPa, and
maximum tensile stress concentration is 20 MPa. In
comparison, maximum compressive and tensile stresses
generated on the surface of cylindrical structure are 330
and 30 MPa, respectively. The elliptical shaped structure
is faced with the least amount of stresses: 280 MPa
compressional and 0 MPa tensile.
The effect of shape on structural stability is
demonstrated in real case tunnels as well (Read, 2004).
In this case, two sets of tunnels are excavated at 420 m
depth in the Underground Research Laboratory of the
Atomic Energy of Canada (Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada) in
the same stress environment (The highest horizontal
forces are around 65 MPa and the vertical forces are
around 27 MPa - 1/ 3 ratio is 65/27 = 2.4) and in the
same orientation: One circular and one elliptical. The only
significant difference between two tunnels is that the first
tunnel is excavated in circular form, while the second
tunnel is excavated in elliptical form. The ratio of
dimensions of elliptical tunnel are selected in similar
proportions (width/height = 2.4) as the in-situ stress ratio;
an aspect which is critical in stability of tunnels (Ate and
Baumgartner, 1995). In the circular tunnel, the roof of the
tunnel is fractured immediately after opening (Figure 3a).
Similar fracturing occurs in the floor of the tunnel. This
fracturing process continues and eventually develops into
notches as shown in Figure 3b. On the other hand, a
‘smoother’ stress distribution, and therefore less local
stress concentration, is obtained by using an elliptical
shape in the same location. Figure 3c shows the
elliptical-shaped tunnel in the same location. It can be
seen that there is no initial fracturing ‘notch’ type failure,
which occurred with the circular-shaped tunnel. These
32 Int. J. Phys. Sci.

analyses and experiments show that certain shapes are

inherently better able in distributing on-coming forces
around structures than others.

Example 3: Shape and survivability of classic

structures under harsh conditions

There are several classic structures, which have shapes

that can manage severe stresses and survive long times.
Tents, pyramids, and domes are among these structures
that have long endured and survived harsh environments
(Figure 4). An examination of these shapes reveals that
the most common feature among them is their inherent
ability to disperse forces. Other structures of interest,
classic or modern, are: A bridge pier, which is shown to
illustrate its shape and forces acting on it represented by
action of water around it. A rectangular bridge pier would
have no chance ‘resisting’ the active forces of the
environment in many places, for example, Confederation
Bridge – Canada (2004). This bridge is the longest bridge
in the world to span ice covered waters of
Northumberland Strait in Eastern Canada. There is ice
covering the strait for five months of the year. A special
design was made to accommodate this, the bridge
designers developed a 52 degree conical ice shield
located on the pier shaft to break up the ice. This ice
shield actually lifts the ice flow up, so, it breaks on its own
weight. The shape of tall towers is also of interest,
because they endure complex forces, such as
turbulences (wind/air resistance) similar to the
earthquake generated surface waves. Examples
provided in Figures 4 depict these structures and
illustrate the paths of earthquake waves acting on them.
All of these structures cannot withstand in their harsh
environments had it not been for their inherent ability to Figure 4. Force managing structures A) Tent, B)
disperse the oncoming forces. Pyramid, C) Bridge pier, D) Tower, E) Dome. An on-
coming force (such as the force of destructive surface
waves created by an earthquake) is depicted to have
been dispersed at the point of impact by the shape of the
DISCUSSION
force- managing structures. Note that the same force
must be faced totally by the force resisting structure
Almost after every earthquake, there is an argument (Figure 1, bottom), making the survival of the force-
among the public, the media, and experts about why resisting structure difficult or, depending the force,
certain buildings survived the earthquakes and others in impossible.
the nearby localities did not. The immediate blame
usually goes to the use of sub-standard materials (or not
enough use of certain materials- e.g., steel bars), or that
the buildings were not constructed according to the latest and that new and practical approaches are needed. The
design codes (Ekici, 2000). This may be the case in ‘new’ does not have to be complex or revolutionary, but
some instances. However, the issue of the use of sub- needs to consider fundamentals and can be as simple as
standard materials or not following the building code is a possible.
legal and/or ethical issue. There are numerous cases The multi-disciplinary examples and analyses provided
where the buildings are designed and constructed in this study demonstrate that if the force-management
according to the latest codes and yet still collapse approach, as opposed to the resist-full-force approach
(Homayun, 2000; Lakkas et al., 2002). This is a clear can be adopted in early design phase whereby the shape
sign that there are gaps in the current design philosophy of buildings can be designed to disperse the earthquake

forces, then, the building safety is dramatically improved.
The recommended approach is simple and may be
economical as well. The complexities introduced to
modern buildings and the client's desire for swift use of
facilities (Austin et al., 1996) may have forced designers
to overlook these benefits.
The shape of building can be designed such that the
earthquake waves are re-directed to minimize the stress
concentration at certain locations in the building. In most
cases, it is the maximum stress, not the average stress,
which causes the failure to initiate. If the initiation of
failure can be delayed and/or avoided, then the collapse
of building can be avoided and/or delayed and the
chances of saving lives during an earthquake increases.
Certain shapes will try to ’resist’ or fight the oncoming
forces by facing the on-coming force in full, while other
shapes ‘manage’ the forces by channeling them
appropriately around them first, and resist only the
remaining ones that they cannot redirect.
The ‘full resist’ mode requires an all around resistive
building, while the ‘manage first’ mode requires a building
shape that helps to divert the forces of earthquake. The
‘full resist’ mode requires a building that is ‘strong’, thus
designed to demand the maximum strength from its
materials. This is a very challenging task at the best of
the circumstances. Besides, meeting this demand often
requires the use of stiff materials at the expense of
flexible materials. The ‘manage first’ mode helps to
provide pathways to divert the forces around and away
from the building. Because the forces that a building sees
are less in this case, there is a much greater/higher
chance of the building’s survival. This mode of design
should also allow more flexible materials than the
traditional stiff and ‘strong’ designs.
In this study, only simple examples are provided and
basic analyses are carried out. Also, the topic crosses the
areas of many disciplines. This, on a detailed level,
introduces some short-comings. The work presented is
intended to be at a conceptual level. Thus, the analyses
are static and/or pseudo-dynamic as opposes to dynamic
wave analyses. The concepts should still apply; and
dynamic analyses employing earthquake waves can be
carried out separately. Also the cost comparison of
building in various shapes vs. the cost of off-the-shelf
design is not done. However, manufacturing stronger and
stronger building elements – required if the force-
management-approach is not employed- to withstand a
large earthquake is also a very challenging and costly
task. Thus adopting the force-management approach can
be more economical.
Conclusions
The real case, multi-disciplinary, examples and analyses
provided in this study demonstrate that the approach of
Ate 33
managing earthquake forces provides more safety.
Therefore, this concept should be used more often and
more consciously by all disciplines involved in the overall
design of structures, specifically in the earthquake-prone
zones. As an added benefit, this approach can also
improve and diversify the overall landscape of some
urban scenes where the rectangle appears the most
dominant shape.
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