Abstract

The types of damage caused by earthquakes in buildings are closely related to the design and building techniques with which they have been built and the quality of the construction materials used. Most of countries with moderate to high seismic risk areas have implemented earthquake-resistant standards to prevent the collapse of buildings and minimize the severity of the damage. However, every new strong shake that occurs around the world reveals bad construction practices that could have been avoided, and the inadequacy or non-existence of earthquake-resistant standards aimed at reducing vulnerability to non-catastrophic levels. Based on the EMS-98 scale, in this chapter we will analyze three case studies of the Ibero-Maghrebian region that have been using similar construction patterns with similar catastrophic results for buildings despite the different dates in which they occurred and the different earthquake-resistant standards: SW Cape St. Vincent earthquake of February 28, 1969; Al Hoceima earthquake of February 24, 2004; and Lorca earthquake of May 11, 2011.

Highlights

  • The Ibero-Maghrebian region comprises the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, and North Africa from the Atlas range to the Mediterranean sea, bordering Tunisia to the east and the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the west, embracing Morocco and Algeria [1]

  • These initial considerations show us that the effects of earthquakes are not merely a proportional relationship between magnitude and intensity; there are some other parameters and more deterministic in terms of vulnerability, such as the distance from the epicenter to populated areas, the depth of the hypocenter, the geological characteristics of the soils and, mainly, the quality of the buildings regarding to the construction techniques, pattern, materials and antiseismic design, which is the subject of this chapter

  • Given this so unbalanced stiffness distribution, the building performs like a rigid block that swings over RC frames of the ground floor, resulting in shear cracks, corner failure, X-shaped or diagonal cracks, partial or complete overturning of infill walls or, in the worst case, plastic hinges that do involve structural damage

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Summary

Introduction

The Ibero-Maghrebian region comprises the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, (including Andalusia, Murcia and Alicante) and North Africa from the Atlas range to the Mediterranean sea, bordering Tunisia to the east and the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the west, embracing Morocco and Algeria [1]. The seismicity of this region is characterized by the N-S to NW-SE convergence between Eurasian and Nubian plates [2]―with a possible rotational axis to the north of Canary Islands― and by the occurrence of shallow earthquakes (

VI IX-X VIII
Method of analysis
Documentary sources
Algarve: an example of bad behavior of buildings of vulnerability A or B
Fonte de Louzeiros: the maximum intensity in the whole macroseismic area
Alentejo coast, Setúbal and Lisbon: the transition to vulnerability class C
Severe damage limited to Guadiana/Guadalquivir strip In
Widespread damage to buildings of class A and B in
Clocks
Effects in Morocco
X-shaped damage, a seismic evidence
Bad practices in RC frames and soft-story damage The housing blocks in Al
The absence or inadequacy of earthquake-resistant standards
VI V-VI VI VI VI VII
VI VI VI VI V-VI VI VI VI-VII V-VI VI VI VI VI VII VI VII VI
The hazard of non-structural elements
Miscalculations lead to catastrophic results
Findings
Conclusions

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