Buildingsductilefor Good Seismic

How to make Buildings ductile
for Good Seismic Performance?

by
Dr. Syed Mohamed Ibrahim M.Tech., Ph.D.,
Mohamed Sathak A.J College of Engineering
How to make Buildings ductile for Good Seismic
Performance?
• Construction Materials
• In India, most non-urban buildings are made in
masonry.
• In the plains, masonry is generally made of burnt
clay bricks and cement mortar.
• However, in hilly areas, stone masonry with mud
mortar is more prevalent; but, in recent times, it is
being replaced with cement mortar.
• Masonry can carry loads that cause compression
(i.e., pressing together), but can hardly take load
that causes tension (i.e., pulling apart) (Figure 1).
How to make Buildings ductile for Good
Seismic Performance?
• Concrete is another material that has been popularly used in
building construction particularly over the last four decades.
• Cement concrete is made of crushed stone pieces (called
aggregate), sand, cement and water mixed in appropriate
proportions.
• Concrete is much stronger than masonry under compressive
loads, but again its behaviour in tension is poor.
• The properties of concrete critically depend on the amount of
water used in making concrete; too much and too little water,
both can cause havoc.
• In general, both masonry and concrete are brittle, and fail
suddenly.
• Steel is used in masonry and concrete
buildings as reinforcement bars of diameter
ranging from 6mm to 40mm.
• Reinforcing steel can carry both tensile and
compressive loads.
• Moreover, steel is a ductile material.
• This important property of ductility enables
steel bars to undergo large elongation before
breaking.
• Concrete is used in buildings along with steel
reinforcement bars.
• This composite material is called reinforced cement
concrete or simply reinforced concrete (RC).
• The amount and location of steel in a member should be
such that the failure of the member is by steel reaching its
strength in tension before concrete reaches its strength in
compression.
• This type of failure is ductile failure, and hence is preferred
over a failure where concrete fails first in compression.
• Therefore, contrary to common thinking, providing too
much steel in RC buildings can be harmful even!!
• Capacity Design Concept
• Let us take two bars of same length and crosssectional
area - one made of a ductile material and another of a
brittle material.
• Now, pull these two bars until they break!! You will
notice that the ductile bar elongates by a large
amount before it breaks, while the brittle bar breaks
suddenly on reaching its maximum strength at a
relatively small elongation (Figure 2).
• Amongst the materials used in building construction,
steel is ductile, while masonry and concrete are brittle.
Performance?
• Now, let us make a chain with links made of brittle and ductile
materials (Figure 3).
• Each of these links will fail just like the bars shown in Figure 2.
• Now, hold the last link at either end of the chain and apply a force F.
• Since the same force F is being transferred through all the links, the
force in each link is the same, i.e., F.
• As more and more force is applied, eventually the chain will break
when the weakest link in it breaks.
• If the ductile link is the weak one (i.e., its capacity to take load is
less), then the chain will show large final elongation.
• Instead, if the brittle link is the weak one, then the chain will fail
suddenly and show small final elongation.
• Therefore, if we want to have such a ductile chain, we have to make
the ductile link to be the weakest link.
Performance?
• Earthquake-Resistant Design of Buildings
• Buildings should be designed like the ductile chain.
• For example, consider the common urban residential apartment
construction - the multi-storey building made of reinforced
concrete.
• It consists of horizontal and vertical members, namely beams and
columns.
• The seismic inertia forces generated at its floor levels are
transferred through the various beams and columns to the ground.
• The correct building components need to be made ductile. The
failure of a column can affect the stability of the whole building,
but the failure of a beam causes localized effect.
• Therefore, it is better to make beams to be the ductile weak links
than columns. This method of designing RC buildings is called the
strong-column weak-beam design method (Figure 4).
• Quality Control in Construction
• The capacity design concept in earthquake resistant design of buildings will
fail if the strengths of the brittle links fall below their minimum assured
values.
• The strength of brittle construction materials, like masonry and concrete, is
highly sensitive to the quality of construction materials, workmanship,
supervision, and construction methods.
• Similarly, special care is needed in construction to ensure that the elements
meant to be ductile are indeed provided with features that give adequate
ductility.
• Thus, strict adherence to prescribed standards of construction materials and
construction processes is essential in assuring an earthquake-resistant
building.
• Regular testing of construction materials at qualified laboratories (at site or
away), periodic training of workmen at professional training houses, and on-
site evaluation of the technical work are elements of good quality control.

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