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I am thinking of making a model of swinging building during earthquake and study the methods to minimize the swinging.

So does it even makes sense to approximate the swinging buildings (the base of the building) to simple harmonic motion? if not then what kind of motion does the buildings do.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm. This may be more of a question about engineering than earth science. I'm not voting that it's off-topic (I think it's borderline), but others might, and if it is closed then I suggest trying on engineering.stackexchange. $\endgroup$ – Semidiurnal Simon Aug 9 '19 at 17:06
  • $\begingroup$ There are already engineering solutions to minimise the swaying of tall buildings during an earthquake. I think they depend on a counter weight, but I have forgotten the details. I also don't know if one has been put severely to the test by a major earthquake, These high tech solutions are a very new thing. $\endgroup$ – Michael Walsby Aug 9 '19 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ Yes. In fact, in PSHA we use a damped single-degree of freedom harmonic oscillator (with a particular damping and resonant period). E.g., see pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5e13/… $\endgroup$ – stali Sep 12 '19 at 19:59
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By the definition of simple harmonic motion (restoring force proportional to displacement), no. You need to take into account damping.

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