TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 SEISMIC DESIGN OF STRUCTURES………………………………………… ....1

1.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1
1.2 METHOD……………………………………………………………………………..2
1.2.1 The Basic Principles of Earthquake Resistant Design………………………....3
1.2.2 Controls of the Analysis Procedure………………………………………........3
1.3 FINDINGS.....................................................................................................................4
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE AND CONCLUSION…………………………………………….6

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 SEISMIC DESIGN OF STRUCTURES
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Every year, 100,000 or more earthquakes that can be felt by people occur worldwide. These
earthquakes range from very small events felt by only a few individuals to great earthquakes that
destroy entire cities.2 The number of lives lost and the amount of economic losses that result from
an earthquake depend on the size, depth and location of the earthquake, the intensity of the ground
shaking and related effects on the building inventory, and the vulnerability of that building
inventory to damage (FEMA, 2010).
Today’s design professionals know how to design and construct buildings and other
structures that can resist even the most intense earthquake effects with little damage. However,
designing structures in this manner can significantly increase their construction cost. Even in the
areas of highest earthquake risk in the United States, severe earthquakes occur infrequently, often
with 100 or more years between events capable of causing widespread damage. Given that many
structures have, on average, useful lives of 50 years, constructing every structure so that it is
invulnerable to earthquake damage would not be a wise use of society’s resources. Instead, the
NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions, and the building codes and industry standards that
reflect the Provisions requirements, are based on the concept of “acceptable risk,” which involves
the establishment of minimum standards that attempt to balance the cost of seismic-resistant
construction against the chance of incurring unacceptable losses in future earthquakes.
Modern earthquake design has its genesis in the 1920’s and 1930’s. At that time earthquake
design typically involved the application of 10% of the building weight as a lateral force on the
structure, applied uniformly up the height of the building. Indeed it was not until the 1960’s that
strong ground motion accelerographs became more generally available. These instruments record
the ground motion generated by earthquakes. When used in conjunction with strong motion
recording devices which were able to be installed at different levels within buildings themselves,
it became possible to measure and understand the dynamic response of buildings when they were
subjected to real earthquake induced ground motion. By using actual earthquake motion records
as input to the, then, recently developed inelastic integrated time history analysis packages, it
became apparent that many buildings designed to earlier codes had inadequate strength to
withstand design level earthquakes without experiencing significant damage. However,
observations of the in-service behavior of buildings showed that this lack of strength did not
necessarily result in building failure or even severe damage when they were subjected to severe
earthquake attack. Provided the strength could be maintained without excessive degradation as
inelastic deformations developed, buildings generally survived and could often be economically
repaired. Conversely, buildings which experienced significant strength loss frequently became
unstable and often collapsed (Andrew, 1998).

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 The key to successful modern earthquake engineering design lies therefore in the detailing
of the structural elements so that desirable post-elastic mechanisms are identified and promoted
while the formation of undesirable response modes are precluded. Desirable mechanisms are those
which are sufficiently strong to resist normal imposed actions without damage, yet are capable of
accommodating substantial inelastic deformation without significant loss of strength or load
carrying capacity. Such mechanisms have been found to generally involve the flexural response of
reinforced concrete or steel structural elements or the flexural steel dowel response of timber
connectors.

1.2 METHOD
According to Haseeb et al. (2011), the basis of seismic design is on the application of
construction techniques, methods and criteria used for the design and construction of building
structures exposed to earthquakes. The design of structure which blindly follows some seismic
code regulation is not likely to assure the survivability from serious damage or collapse. The poor
seismic design of building structure may lead to collapse or destruction. In accordance to building
codes, building structures are designed in such a way to prevent collapse and to with stand the
earthquakes likely to occur at the location of construction. Seismic design provides the building
with suitable stiffness, strength, configuration and ductility.
The basic requirements of seismic design are depending on the structure type, the location
of the structure and application of seismic design and criteria. The stability of ground is also need
before the starting the construction. Earthquake resistant construction refers to the implementation
of the seismic design and building codes for assuring that the building structures survive through
earthquakes. There are two types of destabilizing actions of earthquake on the building structures:
direct (ground shaking, including both horizontal and vertical components) or indirect (landslides,
rockslides and soil liquefaction due to earthquake). About 30% population of the world is living
or working in adobe structures or earth-made construction. These structures use bricks made up of
mud as basic building material. These structures were widely used in the earthquake affected area
of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and AJK. These building are very vulnerable to strong earthquakes, but
there are some factors used to improve the seismic performance of these buildings: quality of
construction, seismic reinforcement and box-type compact layout.
In timber frame structures, timber framing is used for complete skeletal framing. If properly
engineered it provides seismic survivability and some structural advantages. In the earthquake
affected area, the timber is a common building material as there are a lot of forests in the area. In
the earthquake affected area, there were some concrete structures. To avoid serious damage or
collapse, the concrete frame should have ductile joints and steel reinforcements bars should be
used to give strength to the structure. In the high mountainous area with difficult terrain, in the
construction of structures, stones are used as basic building material. To make these structures less
vulnerable to earthquake, less and light stonework is suggested.

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1.2.1 The Basic Principles of Earthquake Resistant Design
Earthquake forces are generated by the dynamic response of the building to earthquake induced
ground motion. This makes earthquake actions fundamentally different from any other imposed
loads. Thus the earthquake forces imposed are directly influenced by the dynamic inelastic
characteristics of the structure itself. While this is a complication, it provides an opportunity for
the designer to heavily influence the earthquake forces imposed on the building. Through the
careful selection of appropriate, well distributed lateral load resisting systems, and by ensuring the
building is reasonably regular in both plan and elevation, the influence of many second order
effects, such as torsional effects, can be minimized and significant simplifications can be made to
model the dynamic building response.
Most buildings can be reasonably considered as behaving as a laterally loaded vertical
cantilever. The inertia generated earthquake forces are generally considered to act as lumped
masses at each floor (or level). The magnitudes of these earthquake forces are usually assessed as
being the product of seismic mass (dead load plus long-term live load) present at each level and
the seismic acceleration generated at that level. The design process involves ensuring that the
resistance provided at each level is sufficient to reliably sustain the sum of the lateral shear forces
generated above that level.

1.2.2 Controls of the Analysis Procedure

Andrew (1998) summarized the essential features of the process as follows:
i. Structural designers are usually given the site location and intended occupancy of the
building as part of their brief.
ii. The National building code normally includes the requirements for the following;
 Design philosophy acceptable for buildings (Limit States or Working Stress
Design)
 Performance objectives for the prescribed occupancy class
 Structural importance classification (which transcribes into the acceptable design
event return period) and
 Proportion of live load considered to be present during a rare event (such as a major
earthquake).
iii. Derive the peak ground acceleration (i.e. elastic response spectrum for T=0) for the design
intensity earthquake ground motion from consideration of the seismicity of the region
(selected to match the design event return period) modified by the near surface soil
modification factor.
iv. Select a suitable structural configuration.
v. Determine the level of design required.
vi. Ascertain the fundamental period of response of the building based on assumed member
sections and properties.

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vii. Ascertain from the horizontal regularity of the structure whether a simple two dimensional
or the more complex three dimensional analysis model required.
viii. Ascertain by consideration of the vertical regularity of the structure whether the structural
response will be dominated by the first mode response of the structure (in which case the
simplified equivalent static design procedure can be used) or whether, because of vertical
structural irregularity, multi-modal analysis is required to enable the base shear distribution
to be established.
ix. If equivalent static analysis is acceptable then;
 Calculate the design level base shear force from the product of the seismic mass
and the lateral force coefficient (derived from the inelastic response spectra)
 Distribute the base shear to each level of the building and between lateral load
resisting systems in accordance with horizontal and vertical regularity of the
structure
 Use elastic analysis techniques to determine actions induced on members from load
combinations which include earthquake forces
x. If multi-modal analysis is required then;
 Ascertain the period and deformed shape for each mode
 Ascertain the contribution of each mode from the base shear of each mode (derived
from the elastic response spectra lateral acceleration at each respective modal
period) distributed between levels according to each mode shape
 Combine the contribution from each mode using an appropriate modal combination
technique
xi. Scale the elastic deformation obtained from the analysis to allow for post-elastic
deformations and check that the overall deformation of the structure and that the inter-
storey drift limits are within acceptable limits. (Note: The overall building deformation
checks usually control boundary edge clearance requirements to avert blocks pounding
each other. The inter-storey drift limits control the onset of nonstructural damage (a
Serviceability Limit State criteria) and also the necessity to consider second order P-
∆effects)
1.3 FINDINGS
According to FEMA (2010), defining acceptable risk is difficult because the risk that is
acceptable to one person may be unacceptable to many others. Often a person’s perception of an
acceptable level of risk depends on whether or not the person believes he or she will be personally
affected and how much the person is being asked to personally spend to avoid the risk. The NEHRP
Recommended Seismic Provisions has adopted the following target risks as the minimum
acceptable for buildings and structures constructed in the United States:
i. A small chance (on the order of 10 percent) that any structure will experience partial or
total collapse as a result of the most intense earthquake ground motion considered by the
building codes. These very rare and intense earthquake effects are called risk-targeted

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 maximum considered earthquake (MCER) ground motions and the probability of their
occurrence varies across the nation. This collapse-prevention goal is intended as the
primary means of ensuring life safety in that most casualties in past earthquakes occurred
as a result of structural collapse. Although protection at this level does not guarantee no
lives will be lost, it should prevent the loss of tens of thousands of lives in individual
earthquake events such as those that occurred in Armenia, China, Haiti, Turkey, and other
nations in recent years.
ii. Limit the chance of collapse (to perhaps 6 percent) as a result of MCER ground shaking for
structures intended primarily for public assembly in a single room or area (e.g., theaters or
convention centers), for structures with a very large number of occupants (e.g., high-rise
office buildings and sports arenas); and for structures housing a moderately large number
of people with limited mobility (e.g prisons) or who society generally regards as
particularly vulnerable and important to protect (e.g., school children).
iii. For structures that contain a large quantity of toxic materials that could pose a substantial
risk to the public (e.g some chemical plants), provide a small probability that structural
damage will result in release of those materials.
iv. Limit the chance of total or partial collapse as a result of MCER ground motions (to
approximately 3 percent) for structures deemed essential to emergency response following
a natural disaster (e.g police and fire stations and hospitals) and further limit the chance
that earthquake shaking will cause damage to these structures or to their architectural,
mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems sufficient to prevent their post-earthquake
use.
v. For all structures, minimize the risk that, in likely earthquakes, debris generated by damage
to cladding, ceilings, or mechanical or electrical systems will fall on building occupants or
pedestrians.
vi. To the extent practicable, avoid economic losses associated with damage to structural and
nonstructural systems as a result of relatively frequent moderate earthquake events.
Andrew (1998) further reiterates that considerable technical effort is being expended on
refining the models used to determine earthquake hazards throughout the world. Although this is
one area of uncertainty, modern structural design practices, particularly the application of capacity
design techniques, are robust enough to overcome such deficiencies. It is the author’s view that
this effort may perhaps be better directed towards refining understanding of the post-elastic
demand capacities of different structural systems and to devising techniques where the
performance of new or innovative solutions can be realistically assessed.
The international trend towards prescribing building performance expectations has gone some
way towards raising public awareness as to what performance is expected from buildings within
their community. This enables some rational cost/benefit decisions to be made regarding insurance
and business continuance planning. However, the engineering fraternity is somewhat tardy in
tackling the thorny issue of realistic whole building performance under rare events such as

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earthquake attack. The concept of various intermediate performance levels is being presented in
modern design specifications where four levels of performance are stipulated which range from
survival through continued occupancy to no-damage. This may be anticipated as being the target
for future standards and more work is required to ensure the performance targets are matched by
the design procedures employed. Displacement based design appears to offer some solutions in
this endeavor. Here the engineering convenience of translating the earthquake motion into forces
in order to execute the design is avoided. Instead the acceptable deformation limits which limit
damage are addressed directly, with the collapse avoidance prerequisite achieved by using capacity
design techniques. The elegance of displacement based design is its directness in addressing the
deformation control aspects necessary for performance based design, and it is expected to see the
introduction of this technique into modern standards over the next five years. The changes in
design methodology and the necessity for material standards to provide guidance on damping
values for different structural system can each be seen as challenges to be addressed.
Haseeb et al. (2011) discovered that the earthquake caused a lot of destruction including human
cost and destruction of damage of buildings and infrastructure. A lot of residential and official
buildings, schools, health facilities, transportation infrastructures, power and communication
infrastructures, water supply and tourism sites faced serious damage; facts and figures about these
destruction are described in detail. The destruction was more than expected because of some
reasons like the construction techniques used were not good without taking into account the
seismic design and provisions. The wall construction was non-engineered and not durable, and
there were no good ties of walls with floor and roof. The foundation was not deep and thick to give
sufficient support to the structure. The quality of building materials was not up to the standard.
There was absence of seismic detailing. In wall construction, the fired-clay bricks perform better
than other types of wall constructions. Most multistory buildings were found resting on non-
structural infill walls and collapsed easily by ground shaking. The mortar used in walls was mostly
mud or low quality cement, making the walls easy to collapse. Some buildings were constructed
on mountain slopes without proper balance.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE AND CONCLUSION

Modern buildings can be designed to be safe under extreme earthquake attack with collapse
being avoided. Current earthquake design practices achieve this by dictating the post-elastic
response of the building, locating and detailing zones within the structure where high post-elastic
deformations are acceptable, rigorously detailing these zones so they can dependably resist the
imposed actions while other, less desirable, post-elastic mechanisms are suppressed. The
importance of achieving a regular building plan layout, with a well distributed lateral load resisting
system and each with a uniform structural elevation is highlighted. The value of placing design
emphasis on achieving the required post-elastic deformation control through careful detailing is
highlighted, as is the futility of highly sophisticated, complex analysis when it is based on
inherently unreliable loading models (Andrew, 1998).

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REFERENCES
Andrew, K. (1998). Earthquake Loads and Earthquake Resistant Design of Buildings. Building
Research Association of New Zealand, pp. 1-16.
Federal Emergency Management Agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2010).
Earthquake-Resistant Design Concepts: Seismic Risk and Performance (pp. 13-20). Washington,
DC: National Institute of Building Sciences.
Haseeb, M., Xinhailu, Aneesa, B., Jahan, Z.K., Iftikhar, A. & Rizwan, M. (2011). Construction of
Earthquake Resistant Buildings and Infrastructure Implementing Seismic Design and Building
Code in Northern Pakistan 2005 Earthquake Affected Area. International Journal of Business and
Social Science, 2 (4), pp. 168-176.