Abstract

India has witnessed 6 earthquakes during past 15 years causing around 40,000 casualties and immense property loss. More than 90% of these casualties are due to collapse of buildings and they occurred within very short period of time after the earthquake. Hence, for reducing casualty losses and subsequent consequences due to earthquake, it is very important to study the response of structures due to seismic excitations. For studying the response of the structures and consequent issues after the earthquake disaster, information technology can play a major role. This paper contributes to understand the importance of information technology in earthquake disaster mitigation.

Abstract

Natural disasters like earthquake, landslide, flood, drought, cyclone, forest fire, volcanic eruption are quite common in different parts of the globe. These natural disasters lead to the loss of life, property damage and socio-economic disruption. Earthquakes are one of the worst among the natural disasters. Seismic zonation map given in IS 1893:2002 shows that India is highly vulnerable for earthquake and over 60% of India is prone to moderate to major earthquakes. During past century, India has witnessed more than 650 earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 and during past 15 years, 6 earthquakes of magnitude over 6. From recent earthquakes, it is very well understood that lack of awareness is one of the contributing factors for huge casualty losses. In order to increase the awareness about the effects of earthquakes among professionals involved in construction, it is necessary to make them understand the concepts of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. For this, we have developed a software tool called Interactive Structural Dynamics Learning Kit (ISDLK) for explaining structural dynamics in a simple manner. For convenience in explaining the concepts, we divided the tool into six modules. Each module contains few experiments with good G.U.I. In these modules, user can input the value and he/she can find the desired results with explanation using graphical diagram. At the end of sixth module, user can understand the complete dynamic behavior of a structure. ISDLK aims to help students, architects and design professional in understanding structural dynamics.

Abstract

Earthquake, now everyone is familiar with this word. We have clearly witnessed during the recent Sumatra, Indonesia earthquake (M 9.0) the amount of damage an earthquake can cause to the society. Had this earthquake occurred on land, it would have easily damaged few hundreds of kilometers and the damage estimates would have been unimaginable. Earthquakes are not new to our country. We have had the long history of earthquake occurrences. Some of the major earthquakes of the world occurred in our country and neighborhood areas. During past 15 years also we have witnessed 6 moderate earthquakes: Bihar-Nepal border (M6.4) in 1988, Uttarkashi, Uttaranchal (M6.6) in 1991, Latur, Maharastra (M6.3) in 1993, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh (M6.0) in 1997, Chamoli, Uttaranchal (M6.8) in 1999 and Bhuj, Gujarat (M6.9) in 20011). These earthquakes caused around 40,000 casualties (see Table 1) and innumerable property loss. These events occurred with a time gap of 2 ~ 3 years. Are we ready to face another event? Even with the current level of understanding, it is very difficult to predict the occurrence time and exact location of next earthquake. The only way to ensure the safety is to get prepared.

Abstract

When an active bedrock fault ruptures, the movement along the fault propagates through the overlying soil and produces zones of intense shear. If the fault movement propagates upto or near the ground surface, the damage to constructed facilities due to faulting, in conjunction with that induced by strong ground motion, can be significant. This paper contributes to the understanding of the response of soil deposits to the underlying bedrock fault displacement. In the conventional attenuation relationship, peak ground acceleration shows maximum value at the closest distance from the fault. However, in the real observations, sometimes it is found that the damage near to the surface fault is not maximum, instead it is high little away from the surface rupture zone. To understand the above-mentioned response of soil deposits, we attempted to develop a new application to Applied Element Method (AEM) by modeling the fault rupture zone. In this, we study the behavior of dip-slip faults. The effect of the slip velocity on the ground motion is studied first and then the attenuation of PGA in the near fault zone is studied. Effect of the material properties is also discussed.

Abstract

Earthquake problems in India need no introduction. From recent earthquakes, it is very well understood that lack of awareness is one of the contributing factors for huge casualty losses. In order to increase the awareness about the effects of earthquakes among professionals involved in construction, it is necessary to make them understand the concepts of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. To address this issue, we have developed a software tool named Virtual Structural Dynamics Laboratory. Using this tool, a person with some knowledge of structural engineering can be able to learn by himself the fundamentals of structural dynamics. For convenience in explaining the concepts, we divided this tool into four modules. Each module contains few experiments with good G.U.I. In these experiments, user can find the explanation with graphical diagram. At the end of fourth module user can understand the dynamic behavior of the structure. This software tool aims to help students, architects and civil engineers in understanding the principles of structural dynamics.

Abstract

Natural disasters like earthquake, landslide, flood, drought, cyclone, forest fire, volcanic eruption are quite common in different parts of the globe. These natural disasters lead to the loss of life, property damage and socio-economic disruption. Earthquakes are one of the worst among the natural disasters. Seismic zonation map given in IS 1893:2002 shows that India is highly vulnerable for earthquake and over 60% of India is prone to moderate to major earthquakes. During past century, India has witnessed more than 650 earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 and during past 15 years, 6 earthquakes of magnitude over 6. From recent earthquakes, it is very well understood that lack of awareness is one of the contributing factors for huge casualty losses. In order to increase the awareness about the effects of earthquakes among professionals involved in construction, it is necessary to make them understand the concepts of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. For this, we have developed a software tool called “Interactive Structural Dynamics Learning Kit (ISDLK)” for explaining structural dynamics in a simple manner. For convenience in explaining the concepts, we divided the tool into six modules. Each module contains few experiments with good G.U.I. In these modules, user can input the value and he/she can find the desired results with explanation using graphical diagram. At the end of sixth module, user can understand the complete dynamic behavior of a structure. ISDLK aims to help students, architects and design professional in understanding structural dynamics.

Abstract

Earthquake, now everyone is familiar with this word. We have clearly witnessed during the recent Sumatra, Indonesia earthquake (M 9.0) the amount of damage an earthquake can cause to the society. Had this earthquake occurred on land, it would have easily damaged few hundreds of kilometers and the damage estimates would have been unimaginable. Earthquakes are not new to our country. We have had the long history of earthquake occurrences. Some of the major earthquakes of the world occurred in our country and neighborhood areas. During past 15 years also we have witnessed 6 moderate earthquakes: Bihar-Nepal border (M6.4) in 1988, Uttarkashi, Uttaranchal (M6.6) in 1991, Latur, Maharastra (M6.3) in 1993, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh (M6.0) in 1997, Chamoli, Uttaranchal (M6.8) in 1999 and Bhuj, Gujarat (M6.9) in 20011). These earthquakes caused around 40,000 casualties (see Table 1) and innumerable property loss. These events occurred with a time gap of 2 ~ 3 years. Are we ready to face another event?

Abstract

India has witnessed 6 earthquakes during past 15 years causing around 40,000 casualties and immense property loss. More than 90% of these casualties are due to collapse of buildings and they occurred within very short period of time after the earthquake. Hence, for reducing casualty losses and subsequent consequences due to earthquake, it is very important to study the response of structures due to seismic excitations. For studying the response of the structures and consequent issues after the earthquake disaster, information technology can play a major role. This paper contributes to understand the importance of information technology in earthquake disaster mitigation

Abstract

This paper presents a software tool for performing the static and dynamic analysis of regular and simple multi-storied structures. This analysis procedure is based on IS 1893:2002 (Part I), Criteria for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures. This tool is a windows based software program developed in Visual Basic. The tool provides a userfriendly GUI for the calculation of base shear and its distribution over the height of the structure, depending on the input parameters. Usual input parameters are structural dimensions, type of structure, soil type, purpose of structure and location. Though this tool is simple, can be used for verification of design within short time. This tool is aimed to help students, architects and engineers during design of earthquake resistant structures.

Abstract

When an active bedrock fault ruptures, the movement along the fault propagates through the overlying soil and produces zones of intense shear. If the fault movement propagates upto or near the ground surface, the damage to constructed facilities due to faulting, in conjunction with that induced by strong ground motion, can be significant. This paper contributes to the understanding of the response of soil deposits to the underlying bedrock fault displacement. In the conventional attenuation relationship, peak ground acceleration shows maximum value at the closest distance from the fault. However, in the real observations, sometimes it is found that the damage near to the surface fault is not maximum, instead it is high little away from the surface rupture zone. To understand the above-mentioned response of soil deposits, we attempted to develop a new application to Applied Element Method (AEM) by modeling the fault rupture zone. In this, we study the behavior of dip-slip faults. The effect of the slip velocity on the ground motion is studied first and then the attenuation of PGA in the near fault zone is studied. Effect of the material properties is also discussed.