EARTHQUAKES RESISTANT STRUCTURES & MORE !

CONTENTS

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DAMAGE  &  PRECAUTIONS

There is a startling difference in the different building technologies and techniques adopted in different countries. Some use expensive timber and high quality steel. Others use inexpensive mud bricks and heavy and poor quality concrete. Some use heavy materials in partitions and insulations, some use specially prepared lightweight materials. This makes all the difference.

Wearing thick armor suits when going to sleep is certainly not acceptable, unless other factors occur which make this necessary!

Ultimately we have to accept the situation that an earthquake of an un-acceptable level occurs, damages and brings down the building - but still somehow like the air bag and crashworthiness of vehicles - we will get a non-crush zone allowing for survival in safety pockets. This aspect is important because it does not require too much additional expense during construction, just a little educated planning and layout of the building.

One of the most noticeable things about failures in different earthquakes that I noticed was that in places like Taiwan entire blocks retained the overall integrity even after toppling over. Whereas in India and Turkey buildings sort of just crumbled. So poor engineering inputs at design stage and poor constructional quality can make all the difference between safety and disaster.

The energy enters the structure and its components, the same should not be allowed to store or add up and should be dissipated in the earth as quickly and smoothly as possible.

In addition smart layout can definitely allow for a very high increase in safety of occupants even in very bad cases of initiation of damage and break down of structural integrity. In this ideas of plastic collapse and retention of certain overall integrity would be involved.