MODULE 1: Introduction

• Seismic zones in India and earthquake hazard.

• Role of architect and structural designer in safe building design,
• Comparison of seismic and conventional design.
• Causes of earthquake, social &economic consequences.
• Major Earthquake case studies, impact on built environment,
classification of observed buiding failure patterns: Global, Indian.
• Basic terms: Fault line, focus, Epicenter distance, Focal depth, Peak
ground acceleration etc.
• Impact of soil characteristics on buildings, seismic zoning and micro
zoning

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Earthquakes

Earthquakes constitute one of the worst natural hazards which often turn
into disaster causing widespread destruction and loss to human life.

What is Earthquake?

• An Earthquake is the result

of a sudden release of
energy in the earth’s crust
that creates seismic
waves.
• The seismic activity of an
area refers to the
frequency,type and size of
earthquakes experienced
over a period of time
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CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE

Natural

Causes of Earthquakes

Man-made

1. Natural Causes of Earthquake:

1. Tectonic Movement: This particularly happens when the continental

plate collides against the oceanic plate. The oceanic plate is
overridden by the continental plate. By a process called subduction
jerky movements are caused along the inclined surface. Tectonic
earthquakes have occurred in Assam in 1950.
2. Volcanic Activity: Earthquakes may also be caused by the movement of
lava beneath the surface of the earth during volcanic activity. The
earthquakes due to Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 is a good
example of volcanic eruption.
3. Dislocation of the Earth’s crust: Earthquakes may be caused by the
dislocation of the crust beneath the surface of the Earth.

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4. Adjustment in inner Rock Beds: Earthquakes are also caused where is an
adjustment between Sima [i.e., beneath the ocean is formed by Silica
and Magnesium = Si + ma = Sima] and Sial (i.e., Continent is formed by
Silica and Aluminium = Si + al = Sial) in the interior of the Earth’s Crust. This
Earthquake may be called as a Plutonic Earthquake.
5. Pressure of gases in the interior: The expansion and contraction of gases in
the interior of the Earth sometimes cause a sudden shake on the Earth’s
surface.
6. Other Causes:
•Landslides and avalanches,
•Denudation of the Landmasses and depositions of materials,
•Faulting and folding in the rock beds are responsible for causing minor
earthquakes.

2. Man-made Earthquakes:
1. The impounding of large quantities of water behind dams disturbs the
crustal balance. This causes earthquakes such as the Koyna earthquake
in Maharashtra.
2. The shock waves through rocks set up by the underground testing of
Atom bombs or Hydrogen bombs may be severe to cause earthquake.
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EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE.

Destructive Effects: Constructive Effects:

1. Earthquake causes dismantling 1. Sometimes the earthquakes

of buildings, bridge and other cause formation of hot
structures at or near epicenter. springs which are very useful
Many men and animals are killed to people.
or buried under collapsed
houses. 2. The earthquakes sometimes
2. Rails are folded, underground cause submergence in
wires broken. Fire breaks out coastal land, and result in
inevitably in large towns. formation of inlets, bays and
3. Earthquakes originate sea waves gulfs which help to develop
called Tsunamis. of fishing and shipping etc.
4. Earthquakes result in the
formation of cracks and fissures 3. Sometimes, the earthquakes
on the ground formation. cause emergence of costs
5. The earthquakes cause and bring fertile shore out of
landslides and disturb the water to give chance to
isostatic equilibrium. develop crop production.
6. Landslide due to earthquake
may block valleys to form lakes.
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SOCIAL &ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF EARTHQUAKE.

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MAJOR EARTHQUAKE CASE STUDIES

1. Kobe, Japan, 1995 (MEDC)

On 17th January 1995, an earthquake struck Kobe, a heavily populated
urban area in Japan. It measured 7.4 on the Richter scale and occurred as
a result of plate movement along the boundary between the Philippines
Plate, Pacific Plate and Eurasian Plate.

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2. Kashmir, Pakistan, 2005 (LEDC)
On 8 October 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hit the
Kashmir region of Pakistan. The earthquake was the result of collision between
the Indian and Eurasian plates.

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3. THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE 2010

CAUSES: The earthquake happened along a conservative plate margin marking the
bounder between the North American plate and the Caribbean plate. At 16:53 on
January 12th 2010 the island of Haiti was struck by a powerful 7.0 magnitude
earthquake. The earthquake was caused by stress building up along the
conservative plate margin, when this stress was released there was a sudden slip
along the fault. The earthquake was followed by several large aftershocks of up to
5.0 on the Richter scale.

EFFECTS: The earthquake devastated large parts of the capital Port-au-Prince and
resulted in massive loss of life making it one of the most destructive earthquakes of
all time.

PRIMARY EFFECTS: 230,000 people were killed. 180,000 homes destroyed by the
ground shaking.

SECONDARY EFFECTS: 2 million people were affected and 1.5 million were homeless.
The homeless were accommodated in over 1100 squalid camps with limited
services such as water and sanitation. People lived in these camps for over a year.
Cholera claimed the lives of several hundred people mainly children. Storms and
flooding caused further hardship in the camps. 19 million chic metres of rubble and
debris created- a huge job to clear up. 5000 schools damaged or destroyed.
Service such as electricity, water , sanitation and communications were badly
disrupted or destroyed. Total damage bill was $11.5billion. 9
4. Bhuj, India 2001

The powerful earthquake that struck the Kutch area in Gujarat at 8:46 a.m.
on January 26th, 2001 has been the most damaging earthquake in the last
five decades in India. The magnitude 7.9 quake caused a large loss of life
and property.
EFFECTS
• Over 18,600 persons are reported to be dead and over 167,000 injured.
• The estimated economic loss due to this quake is placed at around Rs.
22,000 Crores
• The entire Kutch region of Gujarat, enclosed on three sides by the Great
Runn of Kutch, the Little Runn of Kutch and the Arabian Sea, sustained
the highest damage.
• Several towns and large villages, like Bhuj, Anjaar, Vondh and Bhachau
sustained widespread destruction.
• The other prominent failures in the Kutch region include extensive
liquefaction, failure of several earth dams of up to about 20m height,
damage to masonry arch and reinforced concrete bridges, and failure
of railroad and highway embankments.
• Numerous recently-built multistory reinforced concrete frame buildings
collapsed killing a large number of people.

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Total collapse of traditional Collapse of the upper story of a
houses of stone masonry brick masonry building under
with mud mortar at Maliya construction at Bhachau village
and Samakhyali villages

Ground story
collapse of a four-
story reinforced
concrete building
with open ground
story at Bhuj
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 TERMS RELATED TO EARTHQUAKE

Focus(Hypocenter):
Focus is the point on the fault where
rupture occurs and the location from
which seismic waves are released.

Epicenter:
Epicenter is the point on the earth’s
surface that is directly above the focus
,the point where an earthquake or
underground explosion originates.
Focal depth
The focal depth refers to the depth of an earthquake hypocenter. The depth of
the focus can be categorized as shallow (up to 70 km below the surface),
intermediate (70 to 300 km), or deep (greater than 300 km).

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FAULT
• Faults are fractures in Earth's crust where rocks on either side of the crack
have slid past each other.
• An earthquake is what happens when these two blocks of the earth,
seemingly stuck together, suddenly slip past one another.
• The surface where they slip is called the fault or fault plane.

• The slip causes a sudden shaking or

vibration in the Earth due to the sudden
release of energy from within the Earth.

• Sometimes the cracks are tiny, as thin as

hair, with barely noticeable movement
between the rock layers.
• But faults can also be hundreds of miles
long, such as the San Andreas Fault in
California and the Anatolian Fault in Turkey,
both of which are visible from space. 13
Fault Line:

A Fault line is the surface trace of a

fault, the line of intersection
between the earth’s surface.

Fault plane:
Fault plane are the crackes or
sudden slips of the land .

Fault Scrap:
A Fault scrap is the topographic
expression of faulting attributed to
the displacement of the land
surface by movement along
faults.

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THREE TYPES OF FAULTS
1. Strike-slip faults
indicate rocks are sliding past each other horizontally, with little to no
vertical movement. Eg San Andreas and Anatolian Faults
2. Normal faults
They create space. Two blocks of crust pull apart, stretching the crust into a
valley. Eg : East African Rift Zone
3. Reverse faults
also called thrust faults, slide one block of crust on top of another.
These faults are commonly found in collisions zones, where tectonic plates
push up mountain ranges such as the Himalayas

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PEAK GROUND ACCELERATION (PGA)

• is equal to the maximum ground acceleration that occurred

during earthquake shaking at a location.
• PGA is equal to the amplitude of the largest absolute acceleration
recorded on an accelerogram at a site during a particular earthquake.
• Earthquake shaking generally occurs in all three directions.
• Therefore, PGA is often split into the horizontal and vertical components.
• Horizontal PGAs are generally larger than those in the vertical direction but
this is not always true, especially close to large earthquakes.

• PGA is an important
parameter (also
known as an intensity
measure)
for earthquake
engineering
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SEISMIC ZONING

• A seismic zone is a region in which the rate of seismic activity remains

fairly consistent.
• This may mean that seismic activity is incredibly rare, or that it is
extremely common.
• Many nations have government agencies concerned with seismic
activity. These agencies use the data they collect about seismic activity
to divide the nation into various seismic zones.
• A number of different zoning systems are used, from numerical zones to
colored zones, with each number or color representing a different level
of seismic activity

Seismic Zonation may be termed as the geographic delineation of areas

having different potentials for hazardous effects from future earthquakes.
Seismic zonation can be done at any scale, national, regional, local, or site.

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NEED FOR SEISMIC ZONATION

• These maps identify the regions of a country or province in which various

intensities of ground shaking may have occurred or may be anticipated.
• Seismic zoning is used to reduce the human and economic losses
caused by earthquakes, thereby enhancing Economic development
and Political stability.
• New probabilistic maps have been developed as the basis of seismic
design provisions for building practice. These usually give the expected
intensity of ground shaking in terms of peak acceleration.
• The losses due to damaging earthquakes can be mitigated through a
comprehensive assessment of seismic hazard and risk.

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Microzoning –
• the process of subdividing a potential seismic or earthquake prone area
into zones with respect to
some geological and geophysical characteristics of the sites such as
ground shaking, liquefaction susceptibility, landslide and rock fall hazard,
earthquake-related flooding, so that seismic hazards at different locations
within the area can correctly be identified.
• Micro zonation should provide general guidelines for the types of new
structures that are most suited to an area, and it should also provide
information on the relative damage potential of the existing structures in a
region.
• It consists of mapping in detail all possible earthquake and earthquake
induced hazards.
• Microzonation is subdivision of a region into zones that have relatively
similar exposure to various earthquake related effects.
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SEISMIC ZONES IN INDIA
• Bureau of Indian Standards, based on the past seismic history, grouped the
country into four seismic zones, viz. Zone-II, -III, -IV and –V.

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Zone-V comprises of entire northeastern India, parts of Jammu and Kashmir,
Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, parts of North Bihar
and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

• Zone-IV covers remaining parts of Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh,
Union Territory of Delhi, Sikkim, northern parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West
Bengal, parts of Gujarat and small portions of Maharashtra near the west
coast and Rajasthan.

• Zone-III comprises of Kerala, Goa, Lakshadweep islands, and remaining

parts of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, parts of Punjab, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa,
Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Karnataka.

• Zone-II covers remaining parts of the country.

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SEISMIC DESIGN STRATEGIES AND DEVICES

• Diaphragms: Floors and roofs can be used as rigid horizontal planes, or

diaphragms, to transfer lateral forces to vertical resisting elements such as
walls or frames.
• Shear Walls: Strategically located stiffened walls are shear walls and are
capable of transferring lateral forces from floors and roofs to the foundation.
• Braced Frames: Vertical frames that transfer lateral loads from floors and roofs
to foundations. Like shear walls, Braced Frames are designed to take lateral
loads but are used where shear walls are impractical.
• Moment-Resistant Frames: Column/beam joints in moment-resistant frames
are designed to take both shear and bending thereby eliminating the space
limitations of solid shear walls or braced frames. The column/beam joints are
carefully designed to be stiff yet to allow some deformation for energy
dissipation taking advantage of the ductility of steel (reinforced concrete can
be designed as a Moment-Resistant Frame as well).
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BRACED FRAMES

SHEAR WALLS

MOMENT RESISTING FRAMES

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Energy-Dissipating Devices: Making the building structure more resistive will
increase shaking which may damage the contents or the function of the
building. Energy-Dissipating Devices are used to minimize shaking. An example
is Eccentric Bracing whereby the controlled deformation of framing members
dissipates energy.
Base Isolation: This seismic design strategy involves separating the building from
the foundation and acts to absorb shock. As the ground moves, the building
moves at a slower pace because the isolators dissipate a large part of the
shock. The building must be designed to act as a unit, or "rigid box", of
appropriate height (to avoid overturning) and have flexible utility connections
to accommodate movement at its base. Base Isolation is easiest to
incorporate in the design of new construction.

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IMPACT OF SOIL CHARACTERISTICS ON BUILDINGS,

• Few building problems are as significant and expensive to correct as

foundation soil problems.
• They can literally cause the building to fall down. However, not all
movement is dangerous and some is even normal.

Types of Soils

• Soils are generally categorized as gravel, sand, silt and clay. Sand consists
of particles from near 0.5mm to 5.0mm (about 1/4 inch) in diameter.
• Gravel ranges from near 5.0mm to 75mm (about 3 inches) in diameter.
• Anything larger is considered either a cobble or boulder.
• Silt and clay are fine grained.

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 What Makes Soils Unstable?

• The ability of the soil to support the foundation is measured by its

compressibility or consolidation potential as well as bearing strength.
• Ideally, a built foundation should not move once put in place.
• However certain conditions in the soil can cause foundation movement
and consequent foundation or structural damage.

• In granular soils (sand, gravel), movement often results from a condition in

which there are too many voids between particles. A good mixture of
particle size normally will increase stability.
• Some types of silt deposits termed "loess" are held together because of
particle bonding or cementing minerals. These soils may be susceptible to
collapse if exposed to excessive amounts of water.

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• A dramatic type of failure occurs in areas of so-called expansive clays.
These soils are prone to large volume changes related to moisture content.
They shrink in dry seasons; swell in wet seasons or when otherwise in the
presence of water.
• Ground freezing is responsible for soil expansion due to "frost heave." Soil
deposits containing silts are very prone to severe frost heave. Expansion
caused by frost heave is great enough to lift even heavily loaded
foundations and slabs.
• Some causes of soil movement (e.g. landslides where steep slopes exist)
are predictable. Other causes of soil movement are less predictable.
Earthquakes have an obvious effect on the building system. Foundations
typically are designed to support downward vertical load. However,
ground shaking during an earthquake produces horizontal forces.
Designers in earthquake prone zones must account for these as well.
Deposits of loose sand in these areas can also create further problems as
the intense shaking may cause the soil to "liquify." 28
• Certain types of movement are entirely preventable. Before a building
foundation is constructed, any fill soil should be properly placed and
compacted. There should be no organic material (e.g tree stumps or
construction debris) in the soil. These will decay over time, leaving voids
that result in unstable conditions.
• Underground water has been known to cause severe problems. When a
foundation is built on a site, it may interfere with the natural flow of
groundwater. Buildings may even be built over aquifers or seasonal flows.
The erosive nature of moving water is well known, and voids or excessive
pressure build-ups are possible.
• Basement walls can shift, crack, and possibly collapse as a result of poor
foundation soils, or because of lateral pressures caused by soil and
groundwater on the wall exterior. Concrete floor slabs can crack if the
supporting soil settles, expands or lifts because of soil expansion or ground
freezing.
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