Feasibility of the underground earthquake bracelet

Abstract

Earthquakes are sudden phenomena that occur worldwide and have the potential to cause significant devastation. A number of methods have emerged over the years in an effort to decrease their destructive potential, including the emergence of seismic design, dampening mechanisms and shock absorbents. The earthquake bracelet is a new solution which entails digging a gap around a building and then engineering the fill as well as the basement floors to provide more desirable behavior under earthquake load. A dynamic analysis study was completed to explore the response of the structure and assess the feasibility of the idea. Many cases were explored to identify the change in the response spectrum with and without the earthquake bracelet. The results of the preliminary study have been encouraging and indicate that the method is feasible and can be conceptualized as utilizing underground stories and their surroundings as a sophisticated base-isolation system. In order to accomplish this, the system must have: (i) a flexible bracelet, (ii) relatively flexible underground stories and (iii) preferably, a higher relative mass of understructure over superstructure is preferred.