| dc.description.abstract | From major earthquakes in recent years, earthquake resistance design has received escalated attention with regards to structural safety of buildings. In public works, the verification of earthquake resistance design has also become a standard procedure for design and construction. From airports, harbors, highways, power plants, major bridges, water treatment plants, high-rise buildings, etc. the owners have required independent structural design review and adopted earthquake-resistance design specifications univocally, both in design and construction stages.
This research examines the potential constructability issues when adopting the earthquake-resistance design specifications in general. The aspects which are taken into consideration include rebar material planning, construction planning, construction supervision, and independent structural design reviews. In particular, the standardized rebar and concrete working drawings which are derived from such specifications as quality control norms are carefully and meticulously criticized with respect to construction conflicts and impracticability.
From the scope of this research, such conflicts or impracticability are treated as construction defects to be resolved, further devastating the effects of adopting the earthquake-resistance design. This research identifies the loopholes in standardized working drawings and discusses the solutions or compromises between the specifications and constructability concerns. This research also calls for the addition of areas of improvements, including adding strong-pillar/weak-beam systems, avoiding short-pillar/short-beam designs, and connecting inner walls with wall/beam systems. It is hoped that energy absorption consideration must be a built-in feature, so that the earthquake resistance design can make a long-standing peace with constructability concerns. | en_US |