Thursday, December 13, 2018

The Advantage Of Seismic Retrofitting On Buildings

By Peter Fox


Everywhere there is an old building, its damages are not hidden. The crevices and its cracks on its surfaces that makes it look weak and dangerous. One reason why damages on building are often seen is seismic activities. This is the movements below the ground or so called earthquake. The shaking caused by this natural disaster affects the structure of a building and sometimes even destroying it. In addition, the ground or soil where a structure is built can also be deformed making it not a great base for skyscrapers anymore.

Apartment buildings seismic retrofit where the current structures of apartments are improved to allow it to stand against natural disturbances. Good thing, there has been this method that was used when developing the structure of a building to make it resistant to natural hazards like cyclones, tornadoes and including earthquake. This reduces the damages during calamities.

Countries that is surrounded by tectonic plates are often prone to earthquakes due to the constant movements of plates below the ground. Usually homes and apartments are mostly affected of these ground movements because its structure is weak and often made with just light materials. Every year, there are numerous total of homes that are ruined because of seismic activities.

This method was initiated during late nineties in some countries. Though, during that time the details were not that modified and detailed yet. It was just simple and basic but not totally helps an apartment or house from the shaking. After that, there were so many studies in the architecture that created various ideas on how to promote seismic protection.

Strategies that promotes seismic protection is not limited to just one detail. There are various ways on how it could be done on a building. One is called strengthening, this basically adding cross braces and structural walls within the infrastructure to increase its capacity.

Such braces operates like grips on parts that are not as strong as the other. It surely holds those areas when shaking is happening. Almost all buildings in Japan are using steel tendons to strengthen the capacity of a structure in resisting movements. In California, a bridge was actually completely built through such protection beneath. This is just one of those method that started the whole retrofitting thing.

Next technique is known, supplementary damping. This uses a base isolation system which means it is the soil that serves as base that is made capable of supporting the entire infrastructure. The protection is down below and not on the actual apartment. The vibration is absorbed by the ground so that the shaking on the higher parts is reduced.

The supplementary dampers are used to absorb energy caused by the swaying and turn it into heat. This method also lessens displacement and acceleration of the building, as a result the threat of damage is not that huge. In simpler words, dampers serves as shock absorbers down below.

When choosing the materials in building a house or apartment, choosing high capacity elements or materials is also means of ground movement protection. Individual components should be stiff and have strong strength so it would not be easily affected when there is ground movements. Some old structures should have selective upgrade on which components are supposed to be strengthen more.




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