Setup for earthquake scenario

Thanks for the webinar today. I enjoyed it.

Michael, you quickly described how you would setup loads/forces in order to simulate an earthquake. I didn't quite catch it, but would really like to get further clarification on it.

Would you please expand on how 'body loads' are used in simulating earthquake scenarios?

Thanks,

Ernest

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Permalink Reply by Vadim Shapiro on January 18, 2012 at 4:55pm

I think that Michael needs to rest after the webinar :-) So let me answer. Obviously, you are not going to simulate a real earthquake with a linear static model of elasticity. Proper simulation would require using (dynamic) accelerograms, modal (frequency) analysis, and so on. But a poor man's version (used by many not-so-poor people) is an "equivalent static method", where one assumes a peak ground acceleration in some direction and apply it as a static load on the structure. For example, one museum in an earthquake zone applies 0.7g horizontally to their sculptures as a typical earthquake scenario. In Scan&Solve, you simply specify the direction and magnitude of the linear acceleration as explained in the documentation.