R J S Spence - Why Do Buildings Collapse in Earthquakes? Building for Safety in Seismic Areas

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 5
4. Chapter 6
5. Chapter 7
6. Chapter 9

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 4
4. Chapter 5
5. Chapter 6
6. Chapter 7
7. Chapter 8
8. Chapter 9

Robin Spence

Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering and Fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Director, Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd, United Kingdom

Emily So

Reader in Architectural Engineering and Fellow of Magdalene College,University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Director, Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd, United Kingdom

his edition first published 2021
2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication data

Names: Spence, R. J. S. (Robin J. S.), author. | So, Emily, (K. M.), author.
Title: Why do buildings collapse in earthquakes? : building for safety in seismic areas / Robin Spence and Emily So.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : WileyBlackwell, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020053851 (print) | LCCN 2020053852 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119619420 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119619451 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119619468 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: BuildingsEarthquake effects. | Earthquake resistant design.
Classification: LCC TH1095 .S65 2021 (print) | LCC TH1095 (ebook) | DDC 693.8/52dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053851
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053852

Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: Professor Mauricio Beltran

We have been generously supported in the preparation of this book by many friends and colleagues, who have read and commented on parts of the text, provided suggestions and illustrations and have been a valuable source of ideas and inspiration over many years.

We would like first to thank Yutaka Ohta whose dedication to earthquake risk reduction and foresight has been a constant motivation to us both. We would also like to acknowledge the late Laurie Baker and the late Paul Oliver, whose understanding of vernacular architecture and its value has been an inspiration for us.

In the preparation of this book, we greatly appreciate the comments and advice on particular chapters from Andrew Coburn, Antonios Pomonis, Svetlana Brzev, Edmund Booth, Mary Comerio and Rashmin Gunasekera.

We appreciate also the cooperation of Rajendra and Rupal Desai, Amod Dixit, Lucy Jones Toshitaka Katada, Randolph Langenbach, Tracy Monk and Edward Ng in reviewing our profiles of them and their work.

We thank our colleagues Hannah Baker and Weifeng Victoria Lee for help in the preparation of maps and diagrams used, as well as for reviewing parts of the manuscript, Yue Zhu for her help with preparation of a number of the images used, and Sandra MartinezCuevas for supplying the diagram of fragility curves used in , based on her analysis of the Cambridge Earthquake Impact Database (CEQID).

We especially appreciate the painstaking work of Charlotte Airey in developing the building construction type and damage mode drawings used in .

We also greatly appreciate the contributions made by the global panel of experts who responded to the surveys of national successes and failures reported in . An acknowledgement to them is given at the end of that chapter. We would like to acknowledge the help of our colleagues at EEFIT, to Allan Brereton and the committee for their help in making available appropriate illustrations. And to our colleagues at Cambridge Architectural Research and the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge for their support of the book.

Finally, we would like to express our personal thanks to our families. From Emily: my gratitude to Alex and Clara for being the perfect lockdown husband and baby during this challenging year. From Robin: my thanks as always to Bridget for her unfailing support and wise counsel through this, and so many projects in the past.

Earthquakes have been a threat to human habitation throughout history, but until relatively recently, their causes were poorly understood. In the prescientific era, they were commonly ascribed to divine intervention. By the time of the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, there were many who understood that earthquakes had natural causes, but the mechanism remained unexplained, and the supernatural explanation was widely proclaimed, especially from church pulpits (Udias and Lopez Arroyo ), the inhabitants of Messina, destroyed by a massive M7 earthquake in 1908, cried Castigo di Dio (punishment from God).