Newcastle University

School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

CEG8308 Seismic Resistant Design

IceBreaker and Earthquake Scenario game

Scenario 1

Imagine a large (Mw 6) earthquake occurred somewhere near Newcastle. Split into groups and
consider one of the following, then report back with either a verbal report or 1-2 PowerPoint
slides

1. What sort of damage may be expected in buildings? Describe what buildings are likely
to perform well and which will perform poorly and why and what are the consequences
of this?
2. What sort of damage will happen to geotechnical structures such as embankments,
foundations, cuttings, retaining walls, dams etc. Which will perform poorly and why
and what are the consequences of this?
3. What sort of damage is likely to occur in infrastructure such as transport, electricity and
water networks etc .
4. You are tasked with leading the relief efforts. What actions will you take, what are your
priorities?
5. You are in this lecture theatre and you feel the ground start to shake. How are you
affected and how do you respond in the following timeframes
a. immediately
b. 1 hour after the shaking stops
c. 1 day after
d. 1 week after
e. 1 year after

Everyone should comment on how likely is the event described above to occur in the UK,
what sorts of UK structures do you think should be designed for this sort of event, and if
none, what magnitude of event should we design for?
 Newcastle University

School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

CEG8308Seismic Resistant Design

Earthquake record Selection game

On blackboard are a number of earthquake records that can be down loaded and below are a
number of websites that house earthquake records. Split into groups and try and find the
most damaging earthquake for a 10 storey building with high ductility (you may use other
websites if you can find them). Ideally, the earthquake must be presented in a .csv file with
the format shown below. There is also a spreadsheet on blackboard that should be aboe to
convert the files from the websites below into the correct format. These files will then be used
as an earthquake excitation in a computer model of a 10-storey building. The winner will be
the group whose earthquake produces the greatest combination of top storey deflection and
bottom storey bending moment in the structure.

FILE FORMAT

Line 1 number of data points, time-step

Line 2 acceleration 1 (in m/s/s)

Line 3 acceleration 2 (in m/s/s)

etc

If you cannot get it in this format, just bring the data file and a picture of the earthquake
excitation

Describe the strategy that you used to choose the earthquake and why you think it should be
particularly damaging

There are many earthquake databases to choose from. Below is a list of 3 that good ones, but
each country in a seismic region will have their own seismograph stations and will record and
store each earthquake. Many of these sites will let you download the earthquake records, so
looking at other sites may give you an advantage.

http://www.isesd.hi.is/ESD_Local/frameset.htm

http://peer.berkeley.edu/peer_ground_motion_database

http://nsmp.wr.usgs.gov/data.html
 Newcastle University

School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

CEG8308 Seismic Resistant Design

Response history analysis

Download the Newmark.xls spreadsheet off blackboard and use it to investigate the sensitivity
of different structures to dynamic forces. Use the spreadsheet to investigate.

In the spreadsheet you can change the cells with green numbers in them.

1. Change the ration of mass and stiffness (i.e. natural period of the structure) how does
the response change with changing period, what other factors are important in terms of
the response of a structure with a particular period
2. Change the duration of the load and see how the dynamic response changes
3. how the response changes with damping
4. what happens to the result when the time-step is increased? If the time-step gets too
large the answers will be wrong. How can you tell that the answers may be incorrect
because the time-step is too large?
5. How small does the time-step have to be before the answer do not change significantly
with further resuctions in time step (you will need to quote in terms of the natural
period).
6. try change the values of Beta and gamma and see what happens to the results
7. try some other forces and see what happens to the results
 Newcastle University

School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

CEG8308 Seismic Resistant Design
Seismic Forces

You have now been given the coursework. you need to calculate the seismic forces for the 10
storey building. In this example, we will assume that the first period of vibration is 1.0
seconds and the secs. is 0.3 secs. We will also assume that the building can be analysed as a
simple cantilever with a second moment of area is equal to the core.

Step 1 Calculate the mass of each floor (For this exercise use a dead load of 12kPa and an
imposed load of 2kPa)
Step 2 Calculate the modal mass

2
N


G
i =1
gi in

G gn = N

G
i =1
gi in
2

Ggn = is the modal weight for mode n

fin = is the modal displacement of the ith floor
Ggi = is the weight lumped at the ith floor
N = is the total number of floor levels

Step 3 Calculate the base shear for the first two modes of vibration - V n = mn a
Step 4 Calculate the forces up the building for the first two modes of vibration and assuming
the first mode shape is linear and the second mode shape has the following normalised
displacements.
0.333, 0.6667, 1.0, 0.667, 0.333, 0, -0.333, -0.667, -1, -1.333

G gi in
Fxi = V n N

G
j=1
gj jn

Fni = is the earthquake force at level i for mode n

fin = is the nth modal displacement of the ith floor
Ggi = is the weight lumped at the ith floor
N = is the total number of floor levels
Vn = is the modal base shear for mode n

Step 5 Calculate moments for first two modes of vibration

Step 6 calculate total response using SRSS (i.e. ( M12 + M22)
Step 7 plot the bending moment and shear force diagram for the first mode and for both
modes.
 7.00
6.00
5.00
4.00
Spectral acceleration (m/s/s) 3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
Period (s)