COVER STORY

Japans Latest EarthquakeResistance Technology

When the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit Kobe in January 1995, 83.3% of fatalities were caused by
collapsing buildings. The lessons learned from the tragedy have spurred the evolution of seismicresistance technology in the years since then. Japan Echo introduces some of Japans world-leading
antiseismic technologies.

he mainstream approach to building

earthquake-resistant
structures had been to
make them stronger
against seismic shocks.
But even when such buildings are
capable of surviving violent quakes
without collapsing, this has not reduced secondary damage, such as
people being injured by falling furniture and other items. Researchers
have thus since been focusing on
technologies to absorb the energy
of seismic events, namely, base isolation and vibration damping.

Seismic Rubber Bearings

Base isolation involves inserting
Traditional Structure

Sways
violently

seismic isolation devices between

the foundation and main body of a
structure to reduce the seismic energy that reaches the building itself. The most effective substance
found for this purpose are seismic
rubber bearings. The leader in
their technological development,
with over 50% of the domestic
market, is global tire maker Bridgestone.
Since the Kobe quake, use of
seismic rubber bearings has spread
from emergency facilities like hospitals and fire stations to multiunit
residences, historical buildings,
and high-tech factories, notes Nobuo Murota, manager for seismic
isolation products and engineering
development at Bridgestone. To
Structure with Base-Isolation
Technology

Sways
gently
in parallel
motion

Seismic Rubber Bearings

Bridgestone

Nobuo Murota

Bridgestone

meet such diversifying needs,

weve developed varying types and
sizes of seismic rubber bearing
products.
At present, around 2,500 buildings in Japan have been built with
such a shock-absorbing layer.
Bridgestones seismic rubber bearings are currently being used in a
restoration project for the historic
main concourse of Tokyo Station.
The base-isolation technology
developed in Japanland of frequent earthquakesis now being
applied around the world. Bridgestones seismic rubber bearings are
April 2010 7

COVER STORY
Tokyo Sky Trees Vibration-Damping
Technology
634m

used in important buildings on the

West Coast of the United States, a
region similarly prone to earthquakes, including Los Angeles City
Hall, the communications dispatch
center of the Los Angeles Police
Department, and Pixar Animation
Studios.
Interest has increased in recent years owing to the spate of
violent earthquakes around the
world, Murota says. In 2009 I was
invited to give a talk on seismic
rubber bearings in Indonesia. Researchers from all over the world
were there, and I was surprised by
the level of interest in the technology. Indonesian researchers were
particularly enthusiastic, as the
country is not only highly prone to
earthquakes but is also a major
producer of natural rubber.

Pagoda in the Sky

Vibration damping, meanwhile,
relies on antisway devices positioned inside the building itself to
absorb seismic shock. This makes
the technology effective against
not only earthquakes but also
strong gusts. Tokyo Sky Tree is a
digital terrestrial broadcast tower
being built in Sumida Ward to reduce the impact of the increasing

number of high-rise buildings in

Tokyo. As of March 2010, the
structure was more than 300 meters high; when operations begin
in spring 2012 it will be the tallest
free-standing broadcast tower in
the world, at a height of 634 meters. The antiseismic technologies
used in the structure are a groundbreaking fusion of traditional techniques and the very latest modern
technology.
The tower is a two-part structure comprising an outer steel
frame and a cylindrical inner shaft
made of reinforced concrete. The
point to note is that the two elements are independent of one another; if the two pieces were tightly
fixed together, this would amplify
the sway of an earthquake. Because
the frame and shaft move separately, their seismic energies cancel
each other out, reducing the
amount of energy brought to bear
on the tower by as much as 40%.
This vibration-damping technology incorporated in the central
shaft was inspired by Japans ancient Buddhist structures, such as
five-story pagodas. Such pagodas
have an independent central shaft,
which is thought to play a significant role in making the structure
resistant to earthquakes. As far as

By alternately stacking layers of thin rubber discs and steel plates, Bridgestones seismic rubber bearings can support weight 1,000 times greater than rubber alone and can stretch 400%
horizontally. It can thus reduce the shock of an earthquake measuring 7 on the Japanese
seismic intensity scale to an equivalent of a quake registering 3.
Bridgestone

8 Highlighting JAPAN

through articles

Second
observation
deck

375m
First
observation
deck
Inner shaft
The inner shaft and
outer steel frame are
connected with an
oil damper.

125m

The inner shaft

and outer steel
frame are fixed
to one another.

Nikken Sekkei

records show, none of these pagodasincluding that at the temple

Horyu-ji in Nara built 1,300 years
agohas ever been toppled by an
earthquake; something in their
structure is thought to make them
resilient to seismic disturbances.
To further make the Sky Tree
resistant to collapse, the pilings of
the foundation are not straight
poles but walls of concrete reinforced with spike-like protuberances to increase their frictional
resistance. These protuberances
act like the spikes on sports shoes
and help reduce the pressure that
might otherwise cause the building

COVER STORY

to collapse. These pilings are

driven 50 meters into the ground
and then fan out radially like the
roots of a tree to bind them
strongly to the surrounding earth.
The tower is set to open in
spring 2012 with two observation
decks at heights of 350 m and 450
m, along with shops, restaurants,
and offices in an adjacent complex,
and it is expected to become a new
symbol of Tokyo.

T he Worlds Only Earthquake

Simulator
In the past, earthquake engineering researchers carried out laboratory tests on reduced-scale models
or selected components of a structure, such as a wall or column, says
Takahito Inoue, the Planning Section chief of the Hyogo Earthquake
Engineering Research Center.
Such tests have been used as
baseline data for seismic design
standards. However, the 1995 Kobe
Earthquake destroyed many structures that were believed to be sufficiently earthquake resistant.
Our facility, known as E-Defense, was established in 2005 in
response to that disaster. E-Defense operates the worlds largest
indeed the only earthquake simulator that can shake full-scale
structures. We test real structures
to understand how structures actually fail and collapse during an
earthquake and to evaluate the effectiveness of seismic-upgrade
methods.
At E-Defense, we examine
what earthquakes do to structures.
We examine how damage occurs
during an earthquake, how far the
damage extends, and how the
damage eventually leads to failure
of a structure, claims Inoue.
The test bay has an area of
5,200 square meters and height of
43 meters. It houses a 20-meter

The large shake table of the E-Defense test facility enables researchers to check the effectiveness
of seismic upgrade measures using life-size residences and other large structures. E-Defense

long and 15-meter wide table that

can shake buildings weighing up to
1,200 tonsequivalent to a sixstory reinforced concrete building.
The shake table has five hydraulic actuators positioned along
the x-axis, five along the y-axis,
and 14 along the z-axis. Each actuator exerts a thrust of up to 450
tons. The shake table can reproduce extreme three-dimensional
earthquake ground motions, such
as long-period, long-duration motions, and recorded motions from
the Kobe quake amplified by a factor of 1.3.
The majority of buildings
damaged in Kobe were constructed
before an important change was
made to the Japanese seismic design standards in 1981, notes
Inoue. The collapse of the elevated highways was completely
unexpected. Structures similar to
those destroyed in Kobe exist
throughout Japan, and the thought
of experiencing the same loss and
disruption is daunting. So one of
the immediate roles expected of the
E-Defense facility was to confirm
the effectiveness of seismic upgrade

operations adopted nationwide.

In the very first test, we subjected two wooden houses simultaneously to a simulated Kobe
quake and demonstrated how upgrades may improve seismic performance. Subsequently, we examined various structures built in the
1970s, from reinforced concrete
buildings and steel buildings to
concrete bridge piers. The tests
have advanced our understanding
of the real seismic behavior of
structures and established the effectiveness of seismic upgrade
methods implemented since the
Kobe quake.
We are also interested in international collaboration. For example, we have conducted joint
projects on steel buildings and
concrete bridge structures with the
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation program of the
United States. I also want to emphasize that our experiments are
open to the public. Watching a real
building collapse during an earthquake is an extremely educational
experience to heighten ones awareness of the need to be prepared.
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