EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT DESIGN, OF BUILDING ELEMENTS

Abstract

Considerable knowledge has been gained in the, last three decades about the phenomena of ground motion, the characteristics of structures and their behaviour in earthquakes. Whenever an earthquake occurs, it induces forces in structures due to inertia effect of the mass of the structure. These forces tend to fear apart the various parts of the structure. Since in India, an area of about 6,00,000 Sq. miles falls under heavy earthquake zone which have been subjected to severe earthquakes in the past seventy years, hence a earthquake resistant design of building elements is. needed. The basic philosophy of earthquake resistant design is that the structure designed for earthquake region must serve two functions: (i) For frequent small shocks, they must be capable of controlling damage to non-struc-tural elements in the building. (ii) For severe earthquakes they must have adequ-ate ductility to accomodate large lateral deflections whereby the energy given by the earthquake can be absorbed.