Seismic Conceptual Design of Building

"Basic Principles for Engineers, Architects, Building Owners, and Authorities"

In an earthquake, seismic waves arise from sudden movements in a rupture zone (active fault) in the earth's crust. Waves of different types and velocities travel different paths before reaching a building’s site and subjecting the local ground to various motions. The ground moves rapidly back and forth in all directions, usually mainly horizontally, but also vertically.

What happens to the buildings? If the ground moves rapidly back and forth, then the foundations of the building are forced to follow these movements. The upper part of the building however would prefer to remain where it is because of its mass of inertia. This causes strong vibrations of the structure with resonance phenomena between the structure and the ground, and thus large internal forces. This frequently results in plastic deformation of the structure and substantial damage with local failures and, in extreme cases, collapse.

The ground motion parameters and other characteristic values at a location due to an earthquake of a given magnitude may vary strongly. They depend on numerous factors, such as the distance, direction, depth, and mechanism of the fault zone in the earth's crust (epicentre), as well as, in particular, the local soil characteristics (layer thickness, shear wave velocity). 

In comparison with rock, softer soils are particularly prone to substantial local amplification of the seismic waves. As for the response of a building to the ground motion, it depends on important structural characteristics (eigen-frequency, type of structure, ductility, etc). Buildings must therefore be designed to cover considerable uncertainties and variations.

Once take care of principles (by Hugo Bachmann) as suggested in this video while designing building structures..!