Seismic analysis is a subset of structural analysis and is the calculation of the response of a building (or nonbuilding) structure to earthquakes. It is part of the process of structural design, earthquake engineering or structural assessment and retrofit (see structural engineering) in regions where earthquakes are prevalent.
As seen in the figure, a building has the potential to 'wave' back and forth during an earthquake (or even a severe wind storm). This is called the 'fundamental mode', and is the lowest frequency of building response. Most buildings, however, have higher modes of response, which are uniquely activated during earthquakes. The figure just shows the second mode, but there are higher 'shimmy' (abnormal vibration) modes. Nevertheless, the first and second modes tend to cause the most damage in most cases.
The earliest provisions for seismic resistance were the requirement to design for a lateral force equal to a proportion of the building weight (applied at each floor level). This approach was adopted in the appendix of the 1927 Uniform Building Code (UBC), which was used on the west coast of the United States. It later became clear that the dynamic properties of the structure affected the loads generated during an earthquake. In the Los Angeles County Building Code of 1943 a provision to vary the load based on the number of floor levels was adopted (based on research carried out at Caltech in collaboration with Stanford University and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, which started in 1937). The concept of "response spectra" was developed in the 1930s, but it wasn't until 1952 that a joint committee of the San Francisco Section of the ASCE and the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) proposed using the building period (the inverse of the frequency) to determine lateral forces.
The University of California, Berkeley was an early base for computer-based seismic analysis of structures, led by Professor Ray Clough (who coined the term finite element.
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Seismic analysis is a subset of structural analysis and is the calculation of the response of a building (or nonbuilding) structure to earthquakes. It is part of the process of structural design, earthquake engineering or structural assessment and retrofit (see structural engineering) in regions where earthquakes are prevalent. As seen in the figure, a building has the potential to 'wave' back and forth during an earthquake (or even a severe wind storm). This is called the 'fundamental mode', and is the lowest frequency of building response.
Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that designs and analyzes structures, such as buildings and bridges, with earthquakes in mind. Its overall goal is to make such structures more resistant to earthquakes. An earthquake (or seismic) engineer aims to construct structures that will not be damaged in minor shaking and will avoid serious damage or collapse in a major earthquake. A properly engineered structure does not necessarily have to be extremely strong or expensive.
Seismic base isolation, also known as base isolation, or base isolation system, is one of the most popular means of protecting a structure against earthquake forces. It is a collection of structural elements which should substantially decouple a superstructure from its substructure that is in turn resting on the shaking ground, thus protecting a building or non-building structure's integrity. Base isolation is one of the most powerful tools of earthquake engineering pertaining to the passive structural vibration control technologies.
This course deals with the main aspects of seismic design of buildings and bridges. It covers different structural design and evaluation philosophies for new and existing reinforced concrete and unrei
Explores the challenges of force-based design in seismic engineering, focusing on effective stiffness estimation and the implications for seismic design.
Research conducted after the 1994 Northridge earthquake in the U.S. and the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan led to the development of today's pre-qualified beam-to-column connections for capacity-design
The type of floor system has a decisive role in the seismic performance of unreinforced masonry buildings. The in-plane stiffness of the floors has to be adequately represented in the numerical modell
This paper presents the historical development of the vertical extensions of unreinforced masonry buildings in the Eixample district of Barcelona and their impact on the seismic behaviour. Existing ma