Earthquake Engineering

ENGR. ROLANDO A. BITAGUN JR.

PREFACE

 Earthquakes were the cause of more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide
during the 20th Century. During the beginning of the 21st Century the
number of deaths was about half a million. This is an unacceptable finding,
because earthquakes can no longer be regarded as natural disasters,
since the main cause of this huge number of casualties is the inadequate
seismic resistance of the building stock, lifelines and industry, which could
be avoided. Earthquakes do not kill people, but the building collapse can
do it. It is an unbelievable situation that, after a century of research works,
each strong earthquake brings new surprises and creates the situation that
new lessons have to be learnt.
 The basic concepts of today’s Earthquake Engineering were born almost
70 years ago, when the knowledge about the seismic actions and
structural response were rather poor. Many initial concepts were changed
due to the progress in research works, but additional improvements still
remain to be concretized for reaching a satisfactory level of seismic
design.
 The challenge for a proper seismic design is to solve the balance between
earthquake demand and structural capacity. The earthquake demand
corresponds to the effects of earthquake on the structure and depends on
the ground motion modelling. Structural capacity is the structural ability to
resist these effects without failure.
Aspects to be considered to improve
the understanding of Earthquakes

 Improve earthquake monitoring - seismic hazard identification and risk

assessment are critical components of earthquake mitigation strategy.
Under this goal, a monitoring system, based on the regional networks of
instrumented stations, on the use of satellite-based observations(GPS
monitoring stations) and associated data centers, has been developed.
The most useful data for seismic design are obtained from the seismic
stations, by means of recorded accelerations, velocities or displacements.
 Improve understanding of earthquake occurrence - in the last decades,
Seismology has made significant progresses in understanding the basic
physics of earthquakes. Together with these progresses, modern
technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) allow seismologists to
forecast the overall long-term seismic activity. Yet, earthquakes continue
to be a major threat to our society, as we have witnessed during the
seismic events of the last century and the beginning of the new one. A
major difficulty is due to the fact that an earthquake involves a large
number of elementary processes, so that, even if we understand the
physics governing each elementary process, the complex interaction
between them makes accurate forecasts of earthquakes very difficult.
 Improve fundamental knowledge of earthquake effects - Among the most
important contributions to reducing earthquake losses, there are both the
improving of understanding and the modelling earthquake effects,
including the source properties, the wave propagation from the source to
site and the local conditions characterizing the site. This task implies the
development of methods to generate synthetic seismograms for the
expected future earthquakes, incorporating improved understanding of
the rupture process and information about the fault type and the
properties of the surrounding earth’s crust. At the same time, the
identification of the parameters of ground motions causing soil
liquefaction, land sliding and damage of structures (such as peak
acceleration, ground velocity and displacement, shaking duration,
spectral content, etc.).
 Improve the seismic design of structures - A new facet of Earthquake
Engineering research concerning the seismic structural response is based
on the reliance of integrated experimentation, theory, databases and
model-based computer simulations. Under this objective the priorities refer
to improving the understanding of behaviour and collapse mechanisms of
various classes of structures under different earthquake types, in order to
establish new methodologies for performance-based earthquake
engineering. These new methodologies must consider different design
philosophies for structures situated in low to moderate and strong seismic
areas. The objective implies also developing new materials, new
technologies and new structural systems for earthquake resistant
structures.
 Start development of next generation performance-based codes - The
goal of these activities assures the ability to reduce seismic vulnerability of
structural systems, learning from the lessons given by the last strong
earthquakes and from the remarkable knowledge development during
the last decades in the frame of Seismology. The main considered task is to
transfer the accumulated results from the academic research works to the
design practice, filling the existing gap between these to activities,
disseminating upgrade guidelines and new codes, cooperating with
professional associations, promoting education for practicing professionals.
TOPICS INVOLVED IN SEISMIC DESIGN

 Engineering Seismology- developed to solve the problems of the

Earthquake hazard, is a branch of Seismology, having the purpose to use
the seismological knowledge for the seismic design of buildings, by
proposing the seismic actions function of the source and site
characteristics.
 Earthquake Engineering - with the task to solve the problems of
construction vulnerability, is a branch of more general field, the Structural
Engineering Science, having the purpose to develop specific
methodologies for analyzing the effects of seismic actions on
constructions, very different from that used in case of other actions like
dead, live, wind, snow, etc., loads.
 Seismic Design - collects the data given by Engineering Seismology
referring to seismic loads and using the methodologies proposed by the
Earthquake Engineering and performs a complex examination of
structures, including numerical analysis, structural conformation, solutions
for details, and eventually an engineering overview on the designed
structure. The main scope of Seismic Design is to obtain the economical
victory over a strong earthquake by reducing structural damage
controlled by the designer.
Earthquake Engineering

 Earthquake Engineering is a 20th Century development. In 1963, the

International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) was founded,
aiming at organizing World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering
(WCEE). Since the IAEE foundation, these Conferences have been held
every four years. The last ones, presenting very important progresses in
seismic concepts were held in Madrid in 1992, Acapulco in 1996, Auckland
in 2000, Vancouver in 2004, and Beijing 2008. These World Conferences
represent a wide arena giving the opportunity to scientists, engineers,
industrial professionals and government officials to present their scientific
and engineering works, to exchange ideas and knowledge for the
mitigation of seismic risk. They also provide a common platform for
delegates for all over the world to initiate new cooperation.
Earthquake

 It is a sudden, rapid shaking of the earth caused by the breaking and

shifting of rocks beneath the earth surface.
 It is the result of sudden release of energy in the earth’s crust that creates
seismic waves.
 It is the shaking of the earth due to the movement of the Earth’s crust
Magnitude vs. Intensity

 Intensity: The severity of earthquake shaking is assessed using

a descriptive scale – the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.

 Magnitude: Earthquake size is a quantitative measure of the size of the

earthquake at its source. The Richter Magnitude Scale measures the
amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake.

When an earthquake occurs, its magnitude can be given a single numerical

value on the Richter Magnitude Scale. However the intensity is variable over
the area affected by the earthquake, with high intensities near the epicenter
and lower values further away. These are allocated a value depending on
the effects of the shaking according to the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.
Ritcher Magnitude Scale
Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale
Main Types of Seismic Waves

 Body Wave – is a wave that is generated by the release of energy at the

focus that is the epicenter and moves in all directions travelling internally
through the body of Earth.
 P-Wave
 S-Wave
 Surface Wave – is a wave that moves along the surface of the Earth where
buildings and people are.
 Love Wave
 Rayleigh Wave
Sources of Earthquake

 Plate Tectonic Movement

 Volcanic Eruption
 Human Intervention: Explosions
 Meteor Crash
Plate Tectonic Movement

 The earth’s crust is broken into separate pieces called tectonic plates.
Recall that the crust is the solid, rocky, outer shell of the planet. It is
composed of two distinctly different types of material: the less-dense
continental crust and the more-dense oceanic crust. Both types of crust
rest atop solid, upper mantle material. The upper mantle, in turn, floats on
a denser layer of lower mantle that is much like thick molten tar.
 Each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently.
Earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of
tectonic plates at fault lines. The term fault is used to describe the
boundary between tectonic plates. Most of the earthquakes and
volcanoes around the Pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring
of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. Other
observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual
widening of the Great Rift lakes in eastern Africa and the rising of the
Himalayan Mountain range.
Motion Patterns of Plates

 Collision: when two continental plates are shoved together

 Subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another
 Spreading: when two plates are pushed apart
 Transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other
 Geologists have hypothesized that the movement of tectonic plates is
related to convection currents in the earth’s mantle. Convection
currents describe the rising, spread, and sinking of gas, liquid, or molten
material caused by the application of heat.
Volcanic Eruption

 A volcanic eruption occurs when hot materials from the Earth's interior are
thrown out of a volcano. Lava, rocks, dust, and gas compounds are some
of the ejected materials.
 Eruptions can come from side branches or from the top of the volcano.
Some eruptions are terrible explosions that throw out huge amounts of rock
and volcanic ash and kill many people. Some are quiet outflows of
hot lava. Several more complex types of volcanic eruptions have been
described by volcanologists. These are often named after
famous volcanoes where that type of eruption has been seen. Some
volcanoes may show only one type of eruption during a period of activity,
while others may show a range of types in a series.
“Earthquakes do not kill people, but the
buildings do"

THE END