EARTHQUAKE RISK ANALYSIS Earthquake Risk Analysis is the study of the behavior of buildings and structures subject to seismic loading. It is a subset of both structural and civil engineering. Eminent authority on seismic risk mitigation.The main objectives for earthquake engineering or earthquake risk analysis are: Earthquake risk reduction is a complex affair involving many people of many vocations, much information, many opinions and many decisions and actions. The relationships between the contributing sets of information and people. Saudi Geophysical Consulting manages the changes needed to reduce earthquake risk is a challenging task in all the people in any given region that are implicitly or explicitly involved. 1. Understand the interaction between buildings or civil infrastructure and the ground. 2. Foresee the potential consequences of strong earthquakes on urban areas and civil infrastructure. 3. Design, construct and maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations and in compliance with building codes. A properly engineered structure does not necessarily have to be extremely strong or expensive. Shake-table crash testing of a regular building model (left) and a base-isolated building model (right) at UCSD Taipei 101, equipped with tuned mass damper, is the world's second tallest skyscraper, after the Burj Dubai. The most powerful and budgetary tools of earthquake engineering are vibration control technologies and, in particular, base isolation. Seismic loading Seismic loading means application of an earthquake-generated agitation to a structure. It happens at contact surfaces of a structure either with the ground, or with adjacent structures, or with gravity waves from tsunami. Seismic loading depends, primarily, on: 1. Anticipated earthquake's parameters at the site. 2. Geotechnical parameters of the site. 3. Structure's parameters. 4. Characteristics of the anticipated gravity waves from tsunami (if applicable). Sometimes, seismic load exceeds ability of a structure to resist it without being broken, partially or completely. Due to their mutual interaction, seismic loading and seismic performance of a structure are intimately related. Seismic performance: Seismic analysis,Earthquake or seismic performance is an execution of a building's or structure's ability to sustain their due functions, such as its safety and serviceability, at and after a particular earthquake exposure. A structure is, normally, considered safe if it does not endanger the lives and wellbeing of those in or around it by partially or completely collapsing. A structure may be considered serviceable if it is able to fulfill its operational functions for which it was designed. Basic concepts of the earthquake engineering, implemented in the major building codes, assume that a building should survive (the most powerful anticipated earthquake) though with partial destruction. Seismic performance evaluation:Engineers need to know the quantified level of an actual or anticipated seismic performance associated with the direct damage to an individual building subject to a specified ground shaking. The best way to do it is to put the structure on a shake-table that simulates the earth shaking and watch what may happen next.Such kinds of experiments were performed still more than a century ago. Another way is to evaluate the earthquake performance analytically. Seismic performance analysis Seismic performance analysis or, simply, seismic analysis is a major intellectual tool of earthquake engineering which breaks the complex topic into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of seismic performance of building and non-building structures. The technique as a formal concept is a relatively recent development. In general, seismic analysis is based on the methods of structural dynamics. For decades, the most prominent instrument of seismic analysis has been the earthquake response spectrum method which, also, contributed to the proposed building code's concept of today. However, those spectra are good, mostly, for single-degree-of-freedom systems. Numerical step-by-step integration proved to be a more effective method of analysis for multi-degree-of-freedom structural systems with severe non-linearity under a substantially transient process of kinematic excitation. Figure 01. Risk Analysis detection using a seismigraph detector and thermal paper. Saudi Geophysical Consulting researchers for earthquake engineering do both field and analytical investigation or experimentation intended for discovery and scientific explanation of earthquake engineering related facts, revision of conventional concepts in the light of new findings, and practical application of the developed theories estimate) and the velocity depending on the medium. Please contact us for further details about our Earthquake Risk Analysis services.