It’s been a while since my dynamic days, but I believe a tall (or flexible) building near an earthquake source might be a good idea. That follows the general goal of mismatching the natural and forcing frequencies. A tall building right on the fault might not even feel the quake, except maybe the first five or six floors.
Of course, this is a little tongue in cheek.
I believe the current technology (and I am certainly not an authority) would be something like base isolation.
Oh, and your score card?
Being a Trojan: +1
Being an Architect:: -1
Final Score: 0
Just kidding.
Go Trojans! If we’re lucky, we’ll get into the Sun Bowl this year.
T. William (Bill) Allen, S.E.
Consulting Structural Engineers
V (949) 248-8588 •
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Bruckman [mailto:bruckmandesign@verizon.net]
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 8:53 AM
To: seaint@seaint.org
Subject: Earthquake-Proof Design
Listen, you clowns…I leave town for one day and come back to 93 messages about just about everything BUT engineering. So, either I start a thread lambasting Prof. Astenah’s cheesy, stinkin’ football team and how we Trojans will be up there soon to kick Bear, OR I will start a new thread about EQ design.
I’ll start with that and see if it morphs into a football board.
I have a client that bought a piece of land in North LA County. I’ve been to the site and it’s a really pretty, sort of bucolic little area full of chaparral and butterflies. Unfortunately, it also has, about a 3 wood away, the grinding fury of two continental tectonic plates sliding by each other. I think they call it The San Andreas Fault.
So, after the preliminary discussion wherein I say, “There is no such thing as an earthquake-proof building…blah blah blah…”, we got serious and he and I agreed that I would try to get as close as I could by affecting the design in such a way that the threat could be minimized.
So, with that in mind, I told him, for instance: Tall building? Not so much….Irregular building with re-entrant corners….not so much….Now, more broadly, the question for the board:
What are the other various strategies that would minimize the risk?
--DB