Earthquake Protection

An earthquake is the most extreme condition that any building may be required to survive during its lifetime. To survive 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 earthquake protection industry has made the solution once considered un-surmountable a reality. Designers are achieving this by designing smart and using seismic and wind dampers to absorb the energy that may otherwise cause damage to the building. onventional strategy is to make a building strong enough to withstand the might of earthquakes whereas the smart technology is to reduce the earthquake force itself by absorbing it using seismic dampers so that the building performs 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 no longer designing only to meet the minimum building code requirements but are going by the seismic performance criteria 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 a performance related test when the initial warranty period gets over. Typically the life of earthquake protection devices is greater than the life of the building per se. The repercussions of not designing buildings to withstand earthquakes are grave. )&mmediate *ccupancy+ and ),ully *perational+ during and post a ma-or earthquake is the criteria that is spelt out for important structures. The architects and structural consultants are then asked to meet these criteria. This design 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 not employing advanced earthquake protection will most certainly sustain high degree of structural damage as the only way 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 and dissipate 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 they help in restricting the building from swaying excessively and thereby preventing structural damage. The earthquake energy absorbed by these dampers gets converted into heat which is then dissipated into the atmosphere. Dampers thus work to absorb earthquake shocks ensuring that the structural members i.e. beam and columns remain unharmed. There are four types of dampers i.e. 1iscoelastic# ,riction# 2etallic 3ield and ,luid 1iscous. 2any companies speciali4ing in the field are making a bee-line for establishing operations in &ndia. &ndia5s success story of economic growth and the pro-ections for the immediate future# coupled with the heightened seismic activity in the region over the past few years# has led many to look at &ndia as a attractive market destination. ,or low-rise buildings base isolation technique is also extremely popular. &n /ase-&solation the structure above ground is separated from the foundation by inserting rollers6pads between the foundation and the building. These isolators allow the structure to move 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 that have a much larger spread than its height.

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