What is an earthquake

An earthquake may be defined as a wave-like motion

generated by forces in constant turmoil under the surface
layer of the earth (the lithosphere), travelling through the
earth’s crust. It may also be defined as the vibration,
sometimes violent, of the earth’s crust. This release of energy
can be caused by sudden dislocations of segments of the
crust, volcanic eruptions, or even explosions created by
humans. Dislocations of crust segments, however, lead to the
most destructive earthquakes. In the process of dislocations,
vibrations called seismic waves are generated. These waves
travel outwards from the source of earthquake at varying
speeds, causing the earth to quiver or ring like a bell or
tuning fork.
During an earthquake, enormous amounts of energy are
released. The size and severity of an earthquake is estimated
by two important parameters - intensity and magnitude. The
magnitude is a measure of the amount of energy released,
while the intensity is the apparent effect experienced at a
specific location.
Causes Of An Earthquake

Earthquakes are vibrations or oscillations of the ground

surface caused by a transient disturbance of the elastic or
gravitational equilibrium of the rocks at or beneath the
surface of the earth. The disturbance and the consequent
movements give rise to elastic impulses or waves.
When rocks (formations) are suddenly disturbed, a large
amount of energy is released and the resulting vibrations
spread out in all directions from the source of disturbance.
An earthquake is the passage of vibrations spread out in all
directions from the source of disturbance. This energy would
have built up over long periods of time as a result of tectonic
forces within the earth. Most moderate to large shallow
earthquakes are followed, in the ensuing hours and even in
the next few days, by numerous, usually smaller earthquakes
in the same vicinity. Such smaller shaking of the earth is
called aftershock.
The place of origin of the earthquake in the earth is called the
focus (hypocentre) and the point vertically above the focus
on the surface of the earth is called the epicentre .During an
earthquake, the seismic waves radiate from the earthquake
source somewhere below the ground surface as the opposite
sides of a slipping fault rebound in opposite directions when
the strain energy exceeds the strength of the rock. Even
though this source is spread out through a volume of rocks, it
is often convenient to imagine an implied earthquake source
as a point from which the first emanate. The distance from
the epicentre and the hypocentre (focus) to any given point
on the surface of the earth are called epicentre and
hypocentral distance, respectively. The imaginary line joining
he points of equal seismic intensity is isoseismal.
Natural earthquakes are classified as tectonic (relative
movement of plates), plutonic (deep-seated changes), or
volcanic, on the basis of the source of the stresses that cause
the movement.
The theories of origin of earthquakes are:

Reid’s Elastic Rebound Theory:

Reid explained that the crustal rocks in the vicinity of the
vault was being strained gradually with time until finally the
stress overtook the strength of the rock at the fault. The rock
fractured and slipped back towards a stress free state. The
tremendous amount of energy that had accumulated in the
rock during distortion thus suddenly released and
propagated in all directions from the fault breaks as shock
waves , with accompanying reflections from the earth’s
surface as well as the reflections and refractions as they
traverse the earth’s interior.
The crustal deformations leading to earthquakes can be
conceived in stages. In the pre- seismic stage, the fault, even
though locked on the uppermost segment deforms gradually
over a long time at a greater depth. The rate of deformations
varies with depth. The strain accumulation increases with
time while the medium behaves elastically. In the seismic
phase, the deformations increase rapidly and in elastically
leading to the conversion of accumulated strain energy into
enormous kinetic energy and hence the sudden seismic
movement. Afterwards, in the post-seismic phase, the stress
relaxation takes place viscoelstically.

Theory Of Plate Tectonics ( Continental Drift)

Oceanographic and geological studies indicate that the

earth’s crust comprises several stable rock slabs known as
crustal plates, bordered by rifts mainly in the oceans, along
which the plates are the continuous slow motion relative to
one another.
The convection currents in the magma are responsible for
the plate movements .It is along the boundaries that most of
the earthquakes occur. There are around 20 crustal plates on
the surface of the earth.
 Fig: Tectonic plates of the world

Response Of Structure To Earthquake Motion

The loads or forces which a structure subjected to

earthquake motions is called upon to resist, results directly
from the distortions induced by the motion of the ground on
which it rests. The response ( i.e. the magnitude and
distribution of the resulting forces and displacements ) of a
structure to such a base motion is influenced by the
properties of the foundations of the structure and
surrounding structures, as well as the character of the
existing motion.
As the ground on which the building rests is displaced, the
base of the building moves with it .However, the inertia of
the building mass resists this motion and causes the building
to suffer a distortion. This distortion wave travels along the
height of the structure in much the same manner as a stress
in a bar with the free end. The continued shaking of the base
causes the building to undergo a complex series of
oscillations.
When the ground shaking is at a much slower rate than the
structure’s natural oscillations, the behaviour will be quasi –
static, the structure simply moves with the ground with its
absolute displacement amplitude, approximately the same as
that of the ground. In case the ground motion period and
natural period of structure are similar, resonance occurs and
there is larger dynamic amplification of the motion. The
stiffness and inertia forces at any time in such case are
approximately equal and opposite, most resistance to the
motion is provided by damping of the system. If the ground
motion is much faster than the natural oscillations of the
structure , then the mass undergoes less motion than the
ground .Further , it may be noted that under real earthquake
loading, the dynamic amplification are rather smaller
because earthquake time –history is not a simple sinusoid
(does not have constant amplitude and has a finite duration.
The earthquake motion for the calculation pf design seismic
actions, at a given point on the surface of the earth is
generally represented by the interaction between the elastic
ground acceleration and a structural response called elastic
response spectrum response system. At any particular point,
the ground acceleration may be described by horizontal
components along two perpendicular directions and a
vertical component. In most instances only the structural
response to the horizontal components of the ground motion
is considered since buildings are not sensitive to lateral or
horizontal distortions. These horizontal forces , equal to the
mass times acceleration , represent the inertia forces that
occur at the critical instant during the largest cycle of
vibration , of maximum deflection and zero velocity ,as the
structure responds to earthquake motion .The effect of the
vertical component of the ground motion is generally
considered to not to be significant and is except in cantilevers
.For most structures , experience seems to have justified the
viewpoint .In most instances ,further simplification of the
actual three dimensional response of a structure is achieved
by assuming that the design horizontal acceleration
components will act non-concurrently in the direction of
each principal plan-axis of a building. It is tacitly assumed
that a building designed using this approach will have
adequate resistant acceleration acting in any direction.
In addition to ground acceleration, rocking and twisting
(rotational) components may be involved .Rocking and
torsional effects, due to the horizontal components of
ground motion, occur as a result of ground compliance and
the non-coincidence of the centres of mass and rigidity
.However, the rotational components of earthquake ground
motion are usually negligible.
The principal properties that affect the dynamic response of
the acceleration are the mass of the structure, its stiffness
and its damping characteristics. Under certain conditions, the
effect of a foundation or a supporting medium may have to
be considered .In virtually all earthquake design practice, the
structure is analysed as an elastic system; it is acknowledged
that the structural response to strong earthquakes involves
yielding of the structure, so that the response is inelastic .
The effect of yielding ins a structure is two fold .On one hand,
hysteretic yielding absorbs energy from the structure ,
increasing damping and reducing displacements .The two
effects are roughly equal ,so yielding does not have a large
effect on displacement.
Most of the dynamic analyses of multi-storey structures
assume the free-field ground motion to be applied,
unaltered, to the building foundation, which is assumed to be
rigid .While this approximation may be valid for most
structures founded on soil, which is relatively stiff with
respect to the structure, cases arise where soil-structure
interaction effects produce significantly different results from
those based on a rigid foundation assumption. The effect of
the soil –structure interaction on earthquake response needs
to be considered, as it can vary depending upon the
properties of the soil and the structure, as well as the
character of the input motion.