Page 51 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2017

IMPROVED EARTHQUAKE PERFORMANCE
There are two technologies that provide much better performance than a conventional code-designed building and will provide USRC platinum or gold performance in an earthquake: base isolation and distributed fluid viscous dampers. Base isolation is a design method used to substantially decouple the response of a structure from potentially damaging horizon- tal components of earthquake motions by inserting isolators at the base of a structure. Distributed viscous dampers, on the other hand, are inserted in the structure and dampen or reduce the motion of the structure once shaking begins.
Isolated building Conventional building
Many structures throughout the world have already taken advantage of these technologies to provide much better performance during earthquakes. Dampers and isolators operate like shock absorbers on automobiles. Why should build- ings in earthquake zones be designed without them? These types of devices are not expensive and have proven to offer superior benefits—the additional construction costs are in the 1 to 10 percent range.
The thought is to put some of the energy of the earthquake into dampers or, in the case of base isolation, reduce the motion to which the structure is subjected. The good news is that these devices can be easily integrated into the design of new structures by the engineers if building owners are seeking to provide better performance for their buildings. Addi- tionally, older structures can be retrofitted with dampers or isolators, rather than waiting for the next large earthquake with fingers crossed. Many already have.
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MAY 2017 | Occupational Health1&/11S/1a7fet1y1:26 A4M7
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