STRUCTURAL FAILURES

DUE TO EARTHQUAKE
BY GROUP 4
• Earthquakes are the most destructive natural hazards
throughout human history. Hundreds of thousand people
lost their lives and loss of billions of dollars’ properties
occurred in these disasters. Occurred medium or high-
intensity magnitude earthquakes in last twenty years
showed that these loses 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 causes damages. 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 the another
reasons of damages.
 MARINA DISTRICT
APARTMENT BUILDING
SAN FRANCISCO,CALIFORNIA,USA
LOMA PRIETA EARTHQUAKE

On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit

the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 67 people and
causing more than $5 billion in damages. Despite the
fact that the disaster was one of the most powerful
and destructive quakes ever to hit a populated area of
the United States, the death toll was relatively small.
The disaster is known as both as the San Francisco-
Oakland earthquake and the Loma Prieta earthquake
because it was centered near Loma Prieta Peak in
the Santa Cruz Mountains.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Soft story partial collapse due to
inadequate shear strength at ground
level. The soft story is due to the
construction of garages in the first story
of the building.
RECOMMENDATION:
• Soft-story Seismic Retrofitting
Soft-story seismic retrofitting addresses those oversights,
adding the structural components needed for buildings to remain
standing after an earthquake hits.
CYPRESS STREET VIADUCT
(CYPRESS STRUCTURE)
OAKLAND,CALIFORNIA,USA
The Cypress Street Viaduct, often referred to as the
Cypress Structure, was a 1.6-mile-long (2.5 km), raised
two-tier, multi-lane (four lanes per deck) freeway
constructed of reinforced concrete that was originally part
of the Nimitz Freeway (State Route 17, and later, Interstate
880) in Oakland, California.
On October 17, 1989, the portion of the structure from 16th
Street north all the way to the MacArthur Maze collapsed
during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, due to ground
movement and structural flaws.
• When in use, the upper tier was used by
southbound traffic, and the lower tier
was used by northbound traffic.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Some sections of the Cypress Street Viaduct were
largely supported by two columns on either side, but
some sections were only supported beneath by a single
supporting column.
• It was built on filled land on top of bay clay; filled land is
highly susceptible to soil settlement during an
earthquake, and bay clay exhibits larger ground motion.
• Upper portions of the exterior columns
were not tied by reinforcing to the lower
columns, and the columns were not
sufficiently ringed to prevent bursting
(Similar to Hanshin Expressway in
Kobe, Japan).
RECOMMENDATIONS:
• One such technology that was available, and
that could have helped to inhibit that type of
failure, was steel reinforcing plates that could
have been retrofitted to the existing columns.
• Lead/rubber isolators, would have minimized the
vibrations the Viaduct experienced during the
quake.
• Wider and more detailed geotechnical
assessment in the area to establish better
foundation design for the structure.
 YUN TSUI
RESIDENTIAL
BUILDING
HUALIEN, TAIWAN
February 6, 2018, an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the
moment magnitude scale hit Taiwan. The epicenter was on
the coastline near Hualien, which was the most severely
affected area, with a maximum felt intensity of VIII (severe)
on the Mercalli intensity scale. At least 17 deaths have
been reported, with 285 injured.
The lower floors of the 12-storey Yun Tsui residential
building -- which also housed a restaurant and hotel --
pancaked when a 6.4-magnitude quake struck the
tourist hotspot of Hualien.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Developer Liu Ying-lin was unlicensed and did not have
the necessary engineering qualifications but oversaw the
building's construction instead of contracting a
professional firm.
• The flaws included inadequate pillars and reinforcing
steel that significantly weakened the building's seismic
capacity.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
• Contract only licensed, qualified and trust-worthy
engineers or engineering firms to design and construct
structures especially for high-rise buildings.
• Comply with established building codes
 ARQUATA DEL TRONTO
OLD HOUSES
AMATRICE, ITALY

Settlements in the Tronto Valley have built up

over centuries, along the route of an important
ancient Roman road, the Via Salaria.
August 24, 2016, a strong earthquake struck a mountainous
stretch of central Italy, killing at least 241 people, trapping
scores under debris and setting off tremors that awakened
residents in Rome, nearly 100 miles to the southwest.
The earthquake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2,
struck at 3:36 a.m., about 6.5 miles southeast of the town of
Norcia in the Umbria region, followed by about 200
aftershocks over the next several hours, including a 5.5-
magnitude tremor at 4:33 a.m.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Primarily made of stone, homes were built without the
benefit of modern science and renovated more recently
with new materials, sometimes with disastrous results.
When reinforced concrete is used on the roof, its weight
causes the masonry to fail because the walls beneath
cannot sustain it.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Another factor may have been the close proximity of
buildings of different ages.
• Residents of the valley also fear buildings may have
been damaged by loosened rocks or rubble left over from
a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the Umbria and
Marche regions in 1997.
RECOMMENDATION:
• Housing blocks to be built on columns that dissipate the
shock from a tremor: a technique known as base
isolation.
• Stiffen the flooring systems so that they connect the
surrounding walls and produce a kind of box behaviour in
the building.
WEI-GUAN GOLDEN
DRAGON BUILDING
TAINAN, SOUTH TAIWAN
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan on
Feb. 6, 2018. Many of the missing and injured
were from one building, the 17-story Wei-guan
Golden Dragon building in Tainan, south Taiwan.

The building, built in 1994, withstood a 1999

earlier earthquake, but was the only high-rise in
Tainan to collapse in the said earthquake.
CAUSE OF FAILURE:
• Photos of the collapsed building show cans
marked “Alesco,” a Japanese brand of paint, lined
up between the collapsed concrete walls. News
reports said that cooking oil cans were used as
construction materials as well.
RECOMMENDATION:
• Do not use tin cans or other non-construction
materials in structures. Always follow the project plan
design and use safe and quality-tested construction
materials.
• Always hold paramount the safety of the building
residents first above all others in designing and
constructing buildings. A true engineer values dignity
over profit.