ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN CRITERIA ACCORDING TO EARTHQUAKE
As T-COD Architecture, we would like to talk to you about earthquake resistant building design this week. Let's take a look at what should be considered in the structural system and what are the faulty and incomplete designs in order to prevent the structures from being damaged in an erathquake.
The plan of a building is very important for the carrier system. Because the placement of columns and beams depends on the possibilities given by the architectural plan. An earthquake affects buildings in the horizontal plane. But buildings are usually designed to carry vertical forces. Therefore, there are important general principles in the design of earthquake resistant structures. One of them is that the columns must be placed in an axis system. These axis spacing should also be as equal as possible. Columns should be connected to beams in both directions and minimum column width should be bw=300 mm. Columns should be placed equally on both axes so that the balance is not concentrated and there are no buckling on the sides where the rigidity is weak. That is, half should be in one direction and half in the other direction.
Like columns and beams, curtain wall is one of the important building elements. Curtains are important in order to increase the stiffness (balance) against horizontal loads to the required value. The thickness of the curtains should not be less than 200 mm. As with columnar systems, shear walls should be placed on an axis system. Likewise, the axis spacing should be equal or close to equal. For earthquake resistant structure design, open gaps should be avoided in the plan and infill and partition walls in a reinforced concrete structure should be used to lighten the structure. The lightness of the structure is very important in terms of earthquake resistance. However, the structure should be as symmetrical as possible.
One of the most difficult places in an earthquake is the beam-column junction areas. Therefore, making columns and beams smaller than necessary so that they can be hidden in the partition walls is at he beginning of the wrong design. At the same time, simple and unsymmetrical building forms in plan and height are among faulty building designs. Continuous loas-bearing walls and large volumes without columns with large cross-sections, which arise when a wide, spacious and unobstructed area is desired, do not allow to create an earthquake-resistant carrier system.
Earthquake resistant building design can only be achieved by well-arranging the loas-bearing system, sufficient static and reinforced concrete calculations, high material strength and attention to constructive details. We have bitterly experienced that the design and implementation of earthquake resistant structures is of vital importance. As T-COD Architecture, we wish that the right building designs are applied and that the same pains will not be experienced again.
