Earthquake zones

A discussion, based on experience, of the measures needed to protect laboratories and equipment in earthquake zones. 

Sufficient suitable land must be available for the proposed plant and for future expansion. The land should ideally be flat, well drained, and have suitable load-bearing characteristics. A full site evaluation should be made to determine the need for piling or other special foundations. Particular care must be taken when building plants on reclaimed land near the ocean in earthquake zones because of the poor seismic character of such land. 

Fursov, V.Z., Vol fson and Khvalorski, A.G. 1968. results of a study of mercury vapour in the Tashkent earthquake zone. Dokl. Akad. Nauk. USSR, 179 1213-1215. 

A wide variety of random packing and structured packing are available. For new construction, except for especially corrosive services, pressure drop critical applications, and special cases, economics drives fractionation equipment selection toward trays. Special cases include applications of very low liquid rates, and where equipment size is critical. Examples of critical equipment size include units on offshore platforms, towers in severe earthquake zones, and towers to be housed inside buildings. 

Balanced against these calls, however, are criticisms of this plan for centralized storage. Critics contend that thousands of shipments of highly radioactive material will be required over decades and that when Yucca Mountain reaches capacity, tens of thousands of tons of high-level waste must still be stored where it was generated. In addition, some have questioned the stability of Yucca Mountain as a geological repository, claiming the site sits on both an earthquake zone and volcanic zone. 

Factory Mutual Engineering Corporation, Maps of Earthquake Zones, Loss Prevention Data 1-2S, Norwood, MA, February, 1987. 

Substances that behave in this way are called thixotropic (thik suh TROH pik). Some clays are thixotropic suspensions, of particular significance in the construction of buildings in earthquake zones. These clays can form liquids in response to the agitation of an earthquake, which can result in the collapse of structures built on the clay. 

These movements produce many major features of the earth s surface, such as mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquake zones. Most of these features are located at plate boundaries, where the plates interact by spreading apart, pressing together, or sliding past each other. These movements are very slow, averaging only a few centimeters each year. 

Pine, Stanley H. 1994. Safety lessons from an earthquake zone. Chemical Health and Safety. Volume 10. Washington, D.C. American... 

Cylinders must be secured upright at all times using brackets with chains, straps, or cables that hold the cylinders fast around the upper third of the tank. This practice should also include empty or MT cylinders (also stored separately from full tanks), since many of these are likely to have residual gas under some pressure. Additional restraints should be used in earthquake zones. 

Effect extent of regional tectonic 0.20 Strongly uplifting region, earthquake zone M > 6, fault zone 9... 

Aprodov VA. 2000 Zony zemletryasenii (The Earthquake Zones) Moscow Mysf. 

Modified Mercatli intensity scale Giaracteristics Richter scale Earthquake zone according to [7-32]... 

Z = earthquake factor depending upon site location. Boston is located in earthquake zone 2 where 2 = 3/8... 

What is the total lateral earthquake force using the ANSI ASS. 1 Code for fhe following vessel A vertical vessel with flat ends is supported on the lower head. The shell is a seamless pipe with 36-in. inside diameter, 1.0 in. thick, and 40 ft. long with 3-in.-thick flat heads. The vessel contains gas at ambient temperature. The vessel is installed in an earthquake zone 4 where Z = 1.0. 

Example 16.11. For the tall vessel described in Example 16.10, what are the longitudinal stresses when the vessel is designed for earthquake zone 2 using the Uniform Building Code ... 

When plotting past earthquakes on a map, earthquake zones become visible. Figure 10.11 shows areas of seismic activity, represented by the magnitude of the peak ground acceleration, on a global seismic hazard map. 

Rossetto T, Elnashai A (2003) Derivation of vulnerability functions fm European-type RC structures based on observational data. Eng Struct 25 1241-1263 Tromans I (2004) Behaviour of buried water supply pipelines in earthquake zones. PhD thesis. Imperial College, London... 

New York Times (2008) School-age children in earthquake zones, 27 May 2008. http //www.nytimes.com/ imagepages/2008/05/27/science/27school.graphic 1. ready.html. Accessed 16 Feb 2014... 

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