Earthquake Engineering
Quasi-static earthquake design
This method of determining the seismic effects on a structure is also called simplified modal
response spectrum analysis [1]. This type of analysis can be applied to buildings that can be
analysed by two planar models and whose response is not significantly affected by contributions
from higher modes of vibration.
1 – Introduction
When a structure is subject to an earthquake, its foundations undergo accelerations in the vertical
and horizontal directions. These will generally be in the range 0.1 to 0.3g, where g is the
acceleration due to gravity. The effect of the vertical acceleration can be seen as a relatively small
addition to, or reduction of, the vertical loading on the structure. It can be assumed that most
structures will cope satisfactorily with the additional vertical loading, particularly as the
earthquake loading is unlikely to occur at the same time as all other possible vertical loads (snow,
maximum live load etc.). However, the horizontal accelerations can be extremely important. In
order to determine precisely the effect of the earthquake, a full dynamic analysis is needed. But a
simpler approach is also useful and is often satisfactory for small structures. In the quasi-static
design method, the whole structure is assumed to have the same horizontal acceleration as the
ground. This generates a horizontal inertia force which the structure can be designed to
withstand.
2 – Early building codes
The first requirements were given by codes laid down in Japan in 1923 and in the U.S. Uniform
Building Code of 1927. In the years since, many countries have developed their own earthquake
codes, most of which are tabulated by Dowrick [2]. In California, after the 1933 Long Beach
earthquake, horizontal loads were specified of a factor C multiplied by the relevant weight of the
building. The factor C was called the seismic coefficient, and was set at 0.1 usually. It was quoted
that Ayoji Suyehiro, a famous Japanese earthquake engineer, as saying after the 1923 Tokyo
earthquake 'As a practical problem, the actual fact that buildings designed under the 0.lg basis
resisted this earthquake fairly well is a datum more valuable than any other arguments.'
Clearly a simple overall seismic coefficient is a crude approximation to the real dynamic
behaviour of the structure. The actual dynamic behaviour of the structure depends upon its
natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping, and the frequencies present in the earthquake.
Attempts were therefore made to incorporate these features in the code.
Tall buildings behave in some respects like cantilevers. The fundamental mode of a cantilever
can be approximated as a displacement which increases linearly from the root to the tip. If the
cantilever is excited in its fundamental mode, this will be a very good approximation. If the
cantilever is very long then it is more likely that a higher mode will be excited, in which the
displacements will vary in some other way. Of course this is an extremely simple analysis, but it
is reflected in the assumptions of the quasi-static design codes.
