The Advantage Of Seismic Retrofitting On Buildings

By Peter Fox


The proof of damages on some old buildings could not be overlooked. Crevices on the surface of which and a slight cracks making it look so dangerous. Most of the time, damaged structures are due to seismic activities. This is the natural movement of the plates below the ground that causes earthquakes. Such disasters affects not only the structure but including the base soil, this causes it to weaken and unable to support the entire building build on top of it.

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.

Several countries that are prone to earthquake are surrounded with tectonic plates all over its location, when a sudden movements occur, the skyscrapers are at stake. Mostly homes or apartments are damaged first because usually the structure of which is not that strong enough to stand against seismic activities or earthquake.

The initial usage of this technique started late nineties in countries such as Japan and US. Although, during that time the details was not yet well modified. There were just basic strategies formed to implement slight seismic protection but was not really that good enough. Though after that, there were so much architectural researches that were conducted so that it would be more useful.

Because of that, there were number of seismic protection that was created and used as a technique on making sure that structures are capable of standing even through a disaster. The first one is called strengthening. It is adding cross braces within the building to add capacity, in addition there were also structural walls that was built.

The brace serves as grip on parts that are weakest, holding it tight so it would not sway that much when movements on the ground are present. In Japan, this is called steel tendons, this are present to most of the buildings. It is actually one of the few method that started the retrofitting. In California, one bridge was built using the same protection.

Supplementary damping is another strategy to reduce damages caused by these hazard activities. Although, the difference is that this focuses on improving the base instead of the structural components. The vibrations from earthquake are absorbed by the ground before it is transmitted to the top.

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.

It is also considered to be a method when materials are made sure to be high capacity in its elements. These components are mostly stiff, that is why it would not be easily affected during soil shaking. When trying to do such method on old building, the changes are not done as a whole but instead the part that has weakest state are the only ones that is improvised.




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