Responding Earthquake through Innovative Engineering

Earthquakes are among the most catastrophic natural calamities that have impacted the population of various international backgrounds including the Valdivia Earthquake (1960) to Sendai, Japan (1995) and other many destructive quakes are recorded in history. According to the National Earthquake Information Center, there is an average of 20,000 earthquakes each year under which 16 of them are counted as the most natural disaster. On 25 April 2015, 7.8 magnitude followed by other consecutive shakes in Nepal does lots of humanitarian damage, Overall confirmed total across the country was more than 4,000 dead and almost 7,000 injured, with officials saying about 100,000 people left homeless. The range of such damage in Nepal was not actually caused by the earthquake itself but mainly because of poor engineered buildings. Such context also reinforces the importance of earthquake resistance building design.

In response to such potential destruction, there have been many attempts to understand and predict the occurrence of an earthquake. However, until now, the most effective human response towards earthquake has been the development of earthquake resistance engineering designs. The basic idea of the design for earthquake resistance building is that the infrastructure is designed in a specific way by using certain chosen materials. And the building can endure given level of earthquake-generated force because of its inelastic deformation capacity and solidified structure. Such type of earthquake resistance building are usually made after selection of appropriate structural design as per the requirement of resistance code and with the careful use of construction amenities like beams, columns and the connectivity between them. After the evolution in engineering sector and in the wake of new construction knowledge, the modern engineers no more make an effort to build strong building; rather they focus on minimizing the force generated by earth upon the building. So in today’s time the engineering response mechanism towards earthquake has shifted from defending earthquake by building strong infrastructure to making specific design that can adapt amid bigger quakes.

Over the years, scientist and engineers have experimented with various earthquake resistance buildings, and there are many prototypes of such buildings available in research, and many of them are on practice these days. Even with advanced technology and new innovation in the engineering sector, it’s not yet possible to construct completely safe building than can withstand powerful earthquakes. But we have many such earthquake resistance designs available like Self-Righting building that seems very practical to minimize earthquake’s destruction.

The idea of self-righting refers to the ability of an object or living thing to get back in the original position even after undergoing certain structural deformation due to external pressure. The whole concept of self-righting was originated from biological study of rigid shell terrestrial animals like a turtle and later incorporated the idea in human-made constructions. Taking same concept, a group of scientists from Japan and Stanford University designed a structure which can resist earthquakes of 7 magnitudes and even bigger than that. This innovative earthquake resistance system for building was successfully tested in Japan. Such structural design not only helps multi-story build to hold together during massive earth shake but also will enable the building to get back stand erect. The damage will be seen only in some parts, and that can also be easily mended with very less effort. This new earthquake-proofing is supposedly so efficient that when the quake stope, the building will return to standing up straight on its foundation.

Self-righting building engineering prototype was designed by the expert team of researcher representation Stanford University and the University of Illinois. The resistance capacity of this design was proven when the structure survived 7 magnitude earthquakes during the test on the shake table. When any building is constructed with self-righting design, the energy exerted by the earthquake will slowly get dispelled through movement of steel frames that are put around the core of building or with the exterior wall. These outer frames can be fitted along with the building during construction or can also be installed in existing infrastructure during the process of seismic retrofitting.

Apart from these underlying structures of earthquake resistance building, the materials used are also an important factor that determines the quality of any physical infrastructure. The materials used during construction play larger part to ensure the flexibility and adaptability of building during quakes. So the engineering of Nepal should focus more on making earth-quake adaptable building rather than trying hard to defend the natural rage with our engineering effort. Today is the right time to experiment with such innovative building designs because we are standing at the edge of dark future loaded with many other potential shakes. And if we act now, we can befriend the calamities with innovative engineering and minimize the impact of the earthquake on our infrastructure.