Brief
Learn about the advanced engineering technologies that can minimize damage and ensure functional recovery of buildings after earthquakes. Discover the seismic isolation system and seismic dampers and how they help buildings withstand earthquakes. Find out why more buildings aren’t built with these technologies and how we can enforce upgrades to existing buildings.
Insight
The earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria in February 2022 put to the test the advanced building technologies that can minimize damage and keep buildings functioning after a quake.Engineers can control how structures respond to earthquakes in several ways. Traditional approaches rely on having certain components of the building absorb the earthquake’s energy.
However, this method can lead to damage accumulating in these structural features that may render the building uninhabitable. Earthquake-resilient systems, such as seismic isolation devices and seismic dampers, minimize the seismic energy that goes into these columns or beams by either absorbing it or diverting it.
As a result, the building experiences less motion and damage and is more likely to remain functional after an earthquake. Several hospitals built with one such technology – called a seismic isolation system – survived the earthquakes with almost no harm, according to local news reports, even while surrounding buildings sustained heavy damage.
While functional recovery is an emerging idea for building earthquake-resilient structures, global modern building codes stipulate that, at a minimum, structures must have measures in place to keep the building from collapsing – called the life safety objective. Buildings following a life safety objective are engineered to sustain damage in a controlled way, to keep the building standing and protect those inside.
However, these upgrades can cost a lot of money, and enforcing these upgrades, especially for private buildings, requires well-planned policies. Although engineers have seen the effectiveness of seismic protection technologies during past major earthquakes, these technologies have been installed in only a tiny fraction of the places where they could potentially be useful.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have once again highlighted the importance of earthquake-resilient building technology.Designing such buildings will not only save people and buildings, but also keep the earthquakes from collapsing communities and economies.
The case in Turkey revealed the limitations of modern seismic codes centered solely on a life safety goal, leading engineers to focus on “functional recovery” and to implement seismic protective technologies more widely.
Highlight
- Earthquake-resilient systems, such as seismic isolation devices and seismic dampers, minimize the seismic energy that goes into these columns or beams by either absorbing it or diverting it.
- Both seismie buildings designed for a life safety objective can protect thousands of lives, the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand revealed the limitations of modern seismic codes centered solely on this design goal.
- c isolation systems and seismic dampers can help a building achieve “functional recovery” – a performance objective whereby buildings are constructed to prevent damage and enable re-occupancy.
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