Improving Earthquake Resistant Design and Construction in India

New materials and structural systems are being introduced in construction profession every day either to replace conventional materials whose availability is becoming scarce or to improve the efficiency of construction. New systems are also being introduced to cater to new demands in functionality and aesthetics. While Indian researchers have kept pace with the theoretical aspects of earthquake resistant design, the practical aspects are hardly touched upon since they require testing and implementation in practice. The current codes are prescriptive about the general requirements for strength and detailing and so are inadequate to define and assess the performance objectives of specific structural systems. Consequently, the gap between academics and profession has been widening and has reached extreme proportions and there is an urgent need to revive applied research in earthquake engineering to evaluate seismic performance of practical systems. In this paper, the work carried out by the author and his students at IIT Madras on seismic design and tests carried out on masonry, reinforced concrete, structural steel, steel-concrete composite, cold-formed steel, semi-rigid frames of steel and composite construction and industrial rack systems are reviewed. The importance of understanding the details of the seismic behaviour of these system towards improving the performance is emphasized.