Earthquakes, Structural Defects, Structural Damages, and Possible Solutions

Earthquakes, Structural Defects, Structural Damages, and Possible Solutions, you'll learn ...

• The earth's structure, plate tectonics, seismic waves, faults, and effects of earthquakes.
• Failure reasons of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings due to earthquakes.
• Failure reasons of masonry buildings due to earthquakes.
• Lessons learned from earthquake damage and failures experienced from this type of natural hazard.

Overview

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Credit: 2 PDH

Length: 29 pages

Earthquakes are the most destructive natural hazards throughout human history. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives, and the loss of billions of dollars in properties occurred in these disasters. Medium or high-intensity magnitude earthquakes in the last twenty years showed that these losses continue.

For reinforced concrete (R/C) buildings, inappropriate design such as soft and weak stories, strong beam–weak column, short column, hammering, unconfined gable wall, and in-plane/out-of-plane movement of the walls results in damage. These are the main reasons. In addition to this, low quality of structural materials, poor workmanship, lack of engineering services, and construction with insufficient detailing of the structural elements are another reason for damages.

The main reasons for masonry building damage in terms of design faults can be shown as heavy earthen roofs, inappropriate detailing of wall-to-wall connections and wall-to-roof connections, absence of bond beams, and large openings. The construction of buildings by using local materials with poor workmanship on the base of traditional rules is another reason for the failures of these buildings. In this course, earthquakes and reasons for damages that arose from earthquakes for reinforced concrete and masonry structures are presented. In addition to this, appropriate solutions are suggested.

This course aims to present earthquake characteristics and structural defects, damages, and methods to prevent earthquake damage.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Recent destructive earthquakes have occurred worldwide.
• The earth's structure, plate tectonics, seismic waves, faults, and effects of earthquakes.
• Failure reasons of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings due to earthquakes.
• Failure reasons of masonry buildings due to earthquakes.
• Lessons learned from earthquake damage and failures experienced from this type of natural hazard.
• Methods to prevent earthquake damage.

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 10 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.