Activity 1

Objective: The students will model the nature of motion of the seismic waves to understand
the ways by which the ground shakes during the ground.
Materials Needed:
 Two slinkies
 Flat, smooth surface
 Notebook and pen
 Safety goggles
Procedure:
1. Make sure to wear safety goggles before starting this activity. Stretch the slinky on the
floor as far as it can go without overstretching it to its limit. Make waves by gathering
several coils at one end and then releasing the coils, while maintaining hold of the
ends. Describe the direction of motion of the waves with respect to the slinky.
2. Move the slinky from side to side (or from left to right to left). Observe the direction of
wave movement. How does the direction of motion of the waves differ from those in
item 1.
3. Move one end of the slinky up and down to generate a wave. This shows how the
surface waves from earthquakes behave. Can you imagine how a building on the
earth’s surface would behave while the ground makes a wave-like motion.

Should we be worried with all kinds of seismic wave motion we are faced with during a big
earthquake? Explain. If you were an engineer, what kind of ground motion will be your main
concern when designing a building resistant to the strongest and most damaging type of
earthquake shaking?
Activity 2
Objective: To identify from knowledge of types of rock and their ground shaking relevant
characteristics, which areas are shaken more intensely.
As a top-notch real estate broker, you were hired by one of the biggest beverage companies
to assess the safety of five houses (one of which company is prepared to purchase for use
as a guest house) from earthquake ground shaking. The board of direction have been
informed by reliable sources that all five prospects in scenic Dimagiba town are safe from
ground rupture, liquefaction, and from other earthquake hazards. The five houses are of the
same design and construction. More specifically, your job is to rate all sites where the five
houses are located based on all available information some of which are indicated in Figure
4.1-8. It shows the shear wave velocity records from a seismograph and the kinds of substrate
materials in all five sites. These materials include clay, silt, sand, gravel and limestone. The
sediment or rock layers and the surface exposures of these are marked as V, W, Y, and Z on
figure 4.1-8.
1. Based on the seismograph records, rank the seismograms according to the amount
of ground shaking. Explain the basis of your assessment.
V____W____X____Y____Z____
2. A well- meaning Dimagiba resident provided you with the information gathered from
old church records dating back to the Spanish colonial times detailing earthquake
damages the town of Dimagiba had experienced. The records state the damages had
been greatest at Z, least damage at W, no damage at V, and moderate damages at Y
and X. What can you infer about the reliability of seismograph records of earthquake
wave velocity as indicator of the intensity of shaking of the ground? Explain.
3. The old damage records show that past earthquakes in Dimagiba had different effects
on buildings located on different kinds of foundation. Explain how the kinds of
foundation material (hard rock and soft sediments) affect the intensity of shaking and
damage. What is the relation of shear wave velocity to toughness or consolidation of
foundation materials? What can you infer about the grain size of sediment units W, X,
Y, and Z?
4. Which house would you recommend to your clients for purchase? As a gesture of
appreciation to the DImagiba residents, what kind of advice can you give them and the
town officials to minimize the kind of damages from ground shaking the town of
DImagiba had been experiencing since the Spanish times?
Now you know how different kinds of foundation shake differently when subjected to an
earthquake of a given magnitude, its distance from the epicentre, and its source
characteristics. Let us see how different buildings respond by swaying, given the same
amount of ground shaking, through performing this simple activity.
Activity 3
Objective: Analyse how resonance and natural frequency can damage buildings and bridges
and how technology can be used to avoid this.
Materials: (per group)
 Set of three walis tingting sticks of equal stiffness
 Modeling Clay
 Styrofoam Block
Procedure:
1. Cut the native brrom sticks into three different lengths: 20 cm, 16.5 cm, and 14 cm.
2. Mold clay into three equally-sized small, round pieces and stick on top of each of the
native broom sticks.
3. Anchor all three sticks 4 cm deep into the Styrofoam block and 10 cm apart with one
of the sticks 12 cm away from one end of the 44cm long Styrofoam base.
4. On a clear table, slowly shake the Styrofoam base with your hand back and forth. How
many and which of the sticks oscillate?
5. Increase the speed at which you shake the Styrofoam base with your hand. What
happened to the motion of the stick that swayed in step 4? Which of the sticks
oscillated this time?
6. Increase the speed of shaking of the Styrofoam base with your hand. Which of the
sticks oscillated this time and which one(s) stopped swaying?
Frequency of the stick and clay ball set-up means how many times it siwings in one second.
Expressed in another way, frequency is a measure of how often the native broom sticks
complete one full swing.
When shaken at the resonance frequencies, that is, the frequency of shaking of the Styrofoam
base approaches the frequency of shaking of the ball and stick set-up, objects will oscillate
with larger aplitudes than at other frequencies.
In real life, what would the sticks and the shaking of the Styrofoam base represent?
Which buildings would require slower shaking of the ground to sway? Which building require
a faster ground shaking frequency to sway? What happens to a building if you shake the base
too fast?
Will the use of stiffer sticks or heavier clay bslls change the natural frequency of the stick and
the clay ball system?
What can structural engineers do to prevent resonance and collapse of buildings? Structural
engineers need to find out the frequency of ground shaking at a given site. Structural
engineers also need to calculate the natural frequency of buildings they design so that the
seismic waves produced during earthquakes do not match the natural frequencies of
buildings. Proper deisgn guarantees that resonance will not occur. Engineers can also use
different building materials to adjust both the weight and stiffness of a building. Can you
suggest other ways to protect a building from resonating with an earthquake?
Section Assessment
1. Recount the steps in generating ground vibration in terms of the elastic rebound
theory.
2. Describe the sequence and nature of motion of the ground vibrations that you might
feel during an earthquake.
3. Which type of seismic wave and motion component would be an engineer’s foremost
concern when designing an earthquake-resistant building?
4. You are a conscientious project manager of a planned multi-storey shopping mall.
Describe the steps that you will take to ensure the safety of shoppers in case of a large
magnitude earthquake that might originate along a nearby earthquake generator.