Can building put up with strong earthquakes really?

We all are well aware of the definition or even the basic meaning of earthquake. It is something that goes like this - shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane or from volcanic activity. How can it be thwarted? This question is asked always since the burnt of earthquake happens to be not only massive but disastrous also. In each and every such natural disaster buildings become vulnerable altogether.

This was the foremost question till the other day – but no more. Reason? A novel method of construction that makes use of steel tendons and replaceable “fuses” in order to help a building put up with strong earthquakes was tested recently in a successful manner.

How did the experiment take place? It has come to the knowledge that on a giant shake table, the system survived replicated earthquakes greater than magnitude 7, more powerful than both the Northridge earthquake in 1994 culpable for rocking the Los Angeles region, and the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 that devastated parts of the San Francisco Bay Area to a large extent.

As per the prudence of analysts and key researchers in the study, mammoth force of earthquakes often leave damaged buildings at the rear that are either beyond repair or very costly to fix.

Speaking on this, Greg Deierlein, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University who led the research team stated, “Most buildings that we design today for large earthquakes are designed such that when there is a large earthquake, the building, in a sense, sacrifices itself to save the occupants.”

It is to be noted, in order to reduce structural damage, the new system is dependent on steel braced-frames on the whole, built into a building’s exterior walls, which are designed to rock up and down whenever an earthquake strikes. Running down the middle of the frames are steel tendons that are elastic enough to control the rocking. The tendons also help lift the building back to its proper alignment once the shaking stops.

“What is unique about these frames is that, unlike conventional systems, they actually rock off their foundation under large earthquakes,” Deierlein added. “The idea of this structural system is that we concentrate the damage in replaceable fuses,” Deierlein said.

As indicated by researchers, the system can be installed as part of a building’s initial design or retrofitted into an existing building. What’s more, they consider that it is also economically feasible to implement. But its real test will be only after it gets available for general use. Can it be successful then?

Let’s see.