The saying goes "Earthquakes Don’t kill, Buildings Do". Correctly speaking, only the buildings of unsafe design and construction collapse under earthquake impact, thereby killing the inmates. But those constructed with proper earthquake resisting features neither collapse nor kill. The Author has carried out research and development studies in regard to such buildings, starting in 1960, and has developed safe building construction methods based on structural analyses and extensive laboratory tests. Wherever these were used in the construction of new buildings as in the Manery Bhali Project and ITBP colony at Mahitanda in Uttaranchal, no building collapsed, not even in the Uttarkashi earthquake epicentral region. The Author has also developed simple methods of introducing earthquake safety elements at critical points of the existing unsafe buildings to upgrade their strength to the level of non-collapse under postulated maximum earthquake intensities in different seismic zones of India. These have been practically applied to thousands of buildings in the post-earthquake situations in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttaranchal. The book includes in different chapters, the know-how about the earthquake occurrences, their effect on non-engineered buildings, principles and details of earthquake resistant design, procedure for assessment of seismic safety of existing masonry buildings and method of upgrading their earthquake safety by retrofitting. The book should be found useful not only by students and researchers of the subject but also by the householders to construct new dwelling, or to look at their own dwellings fro improving the earthquake safety. The extra coast involved on account of earthquake resistant features in new constructions may vary only from 2.5 to 6% in Zones III to V. The retrofitting cost of existing masonry buildings varies from 5% to 12%! These small extra costs will ensure full desirable earthquake of the buildings and the inmates!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anand S. Arya
Dr. Anand Swarup Arya, professor Emeritus of Earthquake Engineering, Indian Institute of technology, Roorkee, is presently national Seismic Advisor, Gol-UNDP Disaster Risk Management Programme in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Chairman, Bureau of Indian Standards Committee, CED 39, on Earthquake Engineering Codes. During 2001-04, he worked as Seismic Advisor to the Gujarat State Management Authority where he played a key role in the post-earthquake reconstruction programme for ensuring the earthquake resistance in all new buildings and rehabilitation of damaged buildings based on his own R & D work. Dr. Arya joined the University of Roorkee as a Lecturer in Civil Engineering and rose to the post of Head of Earthquake Engineering and finally Provice-Chancellor, before taking retirement in 1989. He created international level research and design capabilities at the Department of Earthquake Engineering and in various high level design organizations in the country such as Engineers India Limited, national Hydro Power Corporation, Bharat heavy Electricals, department of Atomic Energy, etc. Through international training programmes, has propagated earthquake engineering know-how in countries like Afghanistan, Nepal, Philippines, Iran, Macedonia and Japan. His book IAEE International; Guideline on Earthquake resistant Non-Engineered Construction has been translated into Spanish as well as Hindi for the free use of the world population! Born in a small town, Ambehta, district Saharanpur, U.P., in 1931, Dr. Arya had a brilliant academic record at the university of Roorkee (B.E., and M.E. degrees) and Ph.D. at the university of Illinois, USA. He is a Fellow of the Indian national science Academy and the Indian national Academy of Engineering. He is the recipient of scores of awards which include the Khosla National Award 1980, ISET Jai Krishna Award 1982, FICCI Cash Award 1986, IE (I) National Design Award 1987 and the coveted United Nations DHA -Saskawa Disaster Prevention Award, 1997. He has been honoured with the Padmashree by the President of India.
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