8/12/2019 0000 Best Earthquake Protection

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Smart Technology for Earthquake Protection

An earthquake is the most extreme condition that any building may be required to survive during its lifetime. Tosurvive the natures might safely and surely also poses the greatest challenge to the architects and structural

engineers. However the modern day computational power and the technological advances in the earthquakeprotection industry has made the solution once considered un-surmountable a reality. Designers are achieving thisby designing smart and using seismic and wind dampers to absorb the energy that may otherwise cause damage tothe building.

onventional strategy is to make a building strong enough to withstand the might of earthquakes whereas the smarttechnology is to reduce the earthquake force itself by absorbing it using seismic dampers so that the buildingperforms much better than what it otherwise do. Today most medium and high-rise buildings are following !ife-"afety Design# more popularly referred as $arthquake%esistant Design for protection against earthquakes. &n the present day architects and structural consultants are nolonger designing only to meet the minimum building code requirements but are going by the seismic performancecriteria being demanded by their clients# in addition to the mandatory requirements of the building codes.

$arthquake protection devices come with a warranty of upto '( years which can be further enhanced after aperformance related test when the initial warranty period gets over. Typically the life of earthquake protection devicesis greater than the life of the building per se. The repercussions of not designing buildings to withstand earthquakesare grave. )&mmediate *ccupancy+ and ),ully *perational+ during and post a ma or earthquake is the criteria that isspelt out for important structures. The architects and structural consultants are then asked to meet these criteria. Thisdesign concept is also known as erformance /ased Design.

As the awareness and economic prosperity is increasing# more and more people want to reduce risks. /uildings notemploying advanced earthquake protection will most certainly sustain high degree of structural damage as the onlyway the earthquake energy can be absorbed by any building is by way of causing some damage.

The most efficient and cost effective way to achieve energy dissipation in buildings is by using $arthquake Dampers.Dampers are mechanical devices that look some what like huge shock absorbers. Dampers function is to absorb anddissipate the energy supplied by the ground movement during an earthquake so that the building remains unharmed#their functioning is also akin to shock absorbers. 0henever the building is in motion during a earthquake tremor theyhelp in restricting the building from swaying excessively and thereby preventing structural damage. The earthquakeenergy absorbed by these dampers gets converted into heat which is then dissipated into the atmosphere. Dampersthus work to absorb earthquake shocks ensuring that the structural members i.e. beam and columns remainunharmed. There are four types of dampers i.e. 1iscoelastic# ,riction# 2etallic 3ield and ,luid 1iscous. 2anycompanies speciali4ing in the field are making a bee-line for establishing operations in &ndia. &ndia5s success story ofeconomic growth and the pro ections for the immediate future# coupled with the heightened seismic activity in theregion over the past few years# has led many to look at &ndia as a attractive market destination. ,or low-rise buildingsbase isolation technique is also extremely popular. &n /ase-&solation the structure above ground is separated from thefoundation by inserting rollers6pads between the foundation and the building. These isolators allow the structure tomove independently of the shifting ground below# thereby effectively isolating it from the ground motion. /ase&solation is however not appropriate for all buildings and is suitable for only low rise buildings upto 7-' storeys thathave a much larger spread than its height.