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Wind, Earthquake And Its Effect On The Earthquake Essay

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Unlike wind, earthquake is a different phenomenon which generates a ground motion. The intensity or acceleration of the earthquake depends upon the magnitude and location of its epicenter. The seismic waves caused by the earthquake cause inertial forces in the building. The inertial forces are created when an outside force tries to move a body in rest which happens in this case as seismic waves tries the move the building in rest. We all know that when a building is subjected to inertial forces it should obey the newton’s second law of motion.

F=M.a -------------------- (3)

Where ‘F’ is inertial force and ‘M’ denotes mass of building and ‘a’ is the acceleration with which the building is moved due to seismic activity.
Duration, velocity and displacement:
From the newton’s second law, it is evident that acceleration is a key factor in determining the forces on a building. But there is one more criteria that we have to look into is the duration of the earthquake. Earthquake that has moderate acceleration, sustained over time, can cause much more damage to buildings than a single much larger peak. It weakens the building structure and reduces its durability. The strong-motion duration is often termed as “bracketed duration” (Arnold 2013). This is the shaking duration above a certain threshold acceleration value, which is 0.05g, and is defined as the time between the first and last peaks of motion that exceeds this threshold value (Arnold 2013). The strong motion

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