Many old brick buildings in Southern California are integrated using unreinforce

Question

Many old brick buildings in Southern California are integrated using unreinforced mortar and not structurally reinforced at the roof. In an earthquake, torsional forces in the direction of the earthquake can cause separation of the mortar and collapse of the building starting at the roofline. Southern California is long overdue for a major earthquake and therefore there is a risk that these older buildings will collapse.
(a) Explain how you would mitigate or manage this risk.
(b) What integration requirements would you write for newly constructed buildings and explain why those requirements needed?

Explanation / Answer

(A)

Earthquake produce seismic wave which comprises of body waves and surface waves, now the destructive nature of earthquakes is because of this surface which which produce the shearing force in the surface. The movement of these ground waves produces the tensional force which can collapse the buildings specially those in which the bricks were integrated using unreinforced mortar and hence we can mitigate this issue by coating the roofs with cement material that is having high tensions stability apart from this steel planks can be reinforced in this cement to increase the effectiveness of the structure.

(B)

For the new building we can use anchor foundation or pile foundation which does the cement grouting of the foundation and thus this will reduce the effect of seismic wave apart from this we can make the connections strong between roof and the foundation by making the column joints reinforced and this will make the structure more stronger.

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