Earthquake Assignment
Earthquake Assignment
Earthquake Assignment
1. Types of Seismic Waves Seismic Waves are waves of energy that travel through the earth, as a result of earthquake, explosion or volcano and impart low frequency acoustic energy. Types of Seismic Waves are: Body Waves: These waves travel through the interior of the earth and refract by varying density
and modulus(stiffness) of Earths interior
P Waves: longitudinal in nature, can travel through any medium and are very fast. S Waves: transverse in nature, can travel through only solid medium and are much slower than P waves.
Surface Waves: These are analogous to water waves and travel along earths surface. Have low
frequency, long duration and large amplitude. Can be most destructive.
Rayleigh Waves: They travel as ripples and are slower than body waves. Propagate along the free surface of semi-infinite elastic half space. The particle motion describes a retrograde ellipse in vertical plane (not necessarily). Love Waves: These are horizontally polarized shear waves existing only in semiinfinite medium. Have the largest amplitude and velocity is in between of S waves in soil layer and half space. These waves can travel only in velocity layered medium, i.e. velocity dependent of . Stoneley Waves: Large amplitude Rayleigh waves that propagate along the interface and decreases exponentially away from interface in both sides. 2. Difference between Intensity and Magnitude Intensity: Intensity is based upon observed effects of ground shaking on people, buildings and
natural features. Expressed in Roman numerals & represents severity of shaking; Medvedev Sponheuer Karnik Scale (MSK) is one such way. Scale of I-XII.
Magnitude: Related to the seismic energy released at the hypocenter (focus) of the earthquake.
Based on amplitude of earthquake waves recorded on instruments. Expressed in Arabic Numerals. Richter Magnitude Scale (0-10) is one way.
Crust: 5-70 km in depth. Consists of thin oceanic crusts to thick continental crusts. Main
constituents of Continental crust are Si+Al and of Oceanic crust are Si+Mg.
Core: Denser materials exist within the core. Main constituents are Fe+Ni. In two layers of solid
inner core of radius 1220 km and liquid outer core of radius 3400 km. The solid outer core is too hot to hold a permanent magnetic field, so probably acts to stabilize magnetic field (25 Gauss) generated by liquid outer core. Inner Core rotates 0.3-0.5 (per year)relatively faster than the surface.
Response Spectrum: A response spectrum is simply a plot of the peak or steady-state response
(displacement, velocity or acceleration) of a series of oscillators of varying natural frequency that are forced into motion by the same base vibration or shock. The resulting plot can then be used to pick off the response of any linear system, given its natural frequency of oscillation. The main limitation of response spectra is that they are only universally applicable for linear systems. Response spectra can be generated for non-linear systems, but are only applicable to systems with the same non-linearity. Response spectra are very useful tools of earthquake engineering for analyzing the performance of structures and equipment in earthquakes, since many behave principally as simple oscillators (also known as single degree of freedom systems). Thus, if you can find out the natural frequency of the structure, then the peak response of the building can be estimated by reading the value from the ground response spectrum for the appropriate frequency. In most building codes in seismic regions, this value forms the basis for calculating the forces that a structure must be designed to resist (seismic analysis). Seismic damage occurs if resonance occurs. Design Spectrum: In 1941 at Caltech, George W. Housner began to publish calculations of response spectra from accelerographs. In the 1982 EERI Monograph on "Earthquake Design and Spectra", Newmark and Hall describe how they developed an "idealized" seismic response spectrum based on a range of response spectra generated for available earthquake records. This was then further developed into a design response spectrum for use in structural design,
and this basic form (with some modifications) is now the basis for structural design in seismic regions throughout the world (typically plotted against structural "period", the inverse of frequency). A nominal level of damping is assumed (5% of critical damping).
Where 0 is the undamped angular frequency of the oscillator and is a constant called the damping ratio. The value of the damping ratio determines the behaviour of the system. A damped harmonic oscillator can be:
Overdamped ( > 1): The system returns (exponentially decays) to equilibrium without oscillating. Larger values of the damping ratio return to equilibrium more slowly. Critically damped ( = 1): The system returns to equilibrium as quickly as possible without oscillating. This is often desired for the damping of systems such as doors. Underdamped (0 < < 1): The system oscillates (at reduced frequency compared to the undamped case) with the amplitude gradually decreasing to zero. Undamped ( = 0): The system oscillates at its natural resonant frequency (o).