Turkey earthquake highlights the necessity of seismic calculation of silo design structure

 Turkey earthquake highlights the necessity of seismic calculation of silo design structure

According to China Earthquake Networks Center(CENC), two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 struck Turkey on 6 February Beijing time. A Turkish earthquake expert has said that a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake in southeastern Turkey was so destructive that it was equivalent to the explosion of about 130 atomic bombs, according to the Turkish newspaper New Dawn.

The earthquake has caused over 6,200 buildings to collapse, and as the first quake occurred in the early hours of the morning, many people were buried in debris in their sleep.

What exactly caused this "stacked" "Pie-shaped" type collapse in Turkey during the earthquake? Although there are multiple factors, it is undeniable that the substandard quality of construction is one of the major reasons.

In order to reduce construction costs, contractors prefer to use concrete blocks and rarely use steel, which is tasked with structural safety, resulting in buildings that are not at all resistant to earthquakes and are instantly destroyed when an earthquake hits, putting the lives and property of hundreds of thousands of people at serious risk.Even if using rebar , the builder prefers the cheaper and non-ribbed steel bar with very poor mechanical properties, and the money saved becomes the contractor's profit.It follows that if a country does not have mandatory building standards, contractors may compress the quality of construction without limits.

In stark contrast, the Hunutlu thermal power plant built by China in the Yumurtalek City, Adana Province, Turkey, was unharmed by the earthquake, with its power generation facilities still operating normally, while two nearby Turkish power plants were forced to shut down due to collapsed plants and damaged equipment.In this situation, the Hunutlu power plant provides a strong support for medical care, rescue and residential electricity in the surrounding area, and the Chinese engineers' insistence on construction quality brings light and heat to the people walking in the dark. That’s because China has comprehensive and strict  building design, construction and management codes, construction and operation can only be approved after the building design meets the requirements of wind, earthquake, snow and other related loads in the location.

 

Here, while we pray for the Turkish people, we should also be alert!!!

Competition in the engineering field should be based on excellent quality and builders should not ignore the long-term interests of the client in order to win the tender, ignore the quality of the project in order to keep the cost of the project down and engage in bad competition in which bad money drives out good money.

In the field of bulk storage silos, there is also such bad competition! Some contractors do not carry out rigorous mechanical calculations and finite element analyses in strict accordance with the wind, earthquake, snow and material movement loads of the silo location, and use "thinning" silos to reduce the silo structure by a fluke, causing irreparable damage to the customer.

Below we analyse the impact of the elimination of this cost by showing the effect of an earthquake on the silo body.

First, we do a finite element analysis of the silo body with and without seismic load involvement under the same conditions!

1. Maximum displacement deformation with and without seismic load involvement under the same conditions(m)

We can see that there is a significant reduction in the bin stress deformation without the involvement of seismic loads.

2. Maximum stress with and without seismic load involvement under the same conditions (KN/m2)

We can see that there is a significant reduction in the bin stresses without the involvement of seismic loads.

We can find a 20-30% reduction in the weight of the silo without considering the effect of seismic loads.

As a result, the use of materials can be drastically reduced without taking into account the effects of earthquakes, thus drastically reducing costs, however, in the event of an earthquake, the owner will have to suffer huge losses of life and property.

The safety of buildings is a matter of life and death, and the blind pursuit of low prices is bound to lead to tragic consequences.

As a leading general contractor of silo engineering and bulk material storage and transportation projects in China, SRON Company has the general contracting qualification required by the Chinese government. We can solemnly promise to our customers that the silo and steel structure of SRON are designed in strict accordance with the relevant construction standards in China, and based on the wind, snow, earthquake and process loads of the project site of the owner. For overseas projects, local architectural standards are considered or used.