How can we protect high-rise buildings/bridges/flyovers from earthquakes?

According to me, the most efficient and cost effective way to achieve energy dissipation in buildings is by using Earthquake Dampers.

Dampers are mechanical devices that look some what like huge shock absorbers. Dampers function is to absorb and dissipate the energy supplied by the ground movement during an earthquake so that the building remains unharmed, their functioning is also akin to shock absorbers. Whenever the building is in motion during a earthquake tremor they help in restricting the building from swaying excessively and thereby preventing structural damage.

The earthquake energy absorbed by these dampers gets converted into heat which is then dissipated into the atmosphere. Dampers thus work to absorb earthquake shocks ensuring that the structural members i.e. beam and columns remain unharmed. There are four types of dampers i.e. Viscoelastic, Friction, Metallic Yield and Fluid Viscous.

I WOULD PREFER DAMPERS AND EARTHQUAKES RESISTING DESIGN.BUT DAMPERS ARE TO BE PROVIDED FOR DIFFERENT UNITS AND HELP ONLY FOR SEISMIC FORCES,WHILE IN DESIGNS THE REINFORCEMENT PROVIDED WILL ALSO BE ADDED TO ITS STRENGTH ,THOUGH PROVIDING BOTH SHALL INCREASE THE COST OF PROJECT.IT IS TO BE DECIDED SEEING THE ACTUAL REQUIREMENT.

Yes Dampner is New technology & could be used in commercial high rise buildings.Without this Steel & RCC Design should be as per sesmic Analysis (Probable Model Computer analysis).Next Joint should have Proper L bends in Beam & tied to column properly.

Small residential construction id so much unorganized, hence it will be a hard nut to crack. But if we look for High rise structures such a adherence will not be an issue. Earthquake resistant design and use of dampers will do increase the cost and execution complexity, but we need some serious thought and strong will power to go for the same.

Further a strong legislation, for such an enforcement will help us to go a long way.

There is one more thing to protect these high-rise buildings like performance based design, where it has to meet criteria like “Immediate Occupancy” and “Fully Operational” during and post a major earthquake, which is very important for high rise as they may be holding various data of people of government and if the building is not proper it will be disastrous. As they can't be retrieved and there are people's lives at stake so it is very important to meet these criteria for High-rise structures.

I think today most medium and high-rise buildings are following Life-Safety Design, more popularly referred as Earthquake Resistant Design for protection against earthquakes. However the awareness amongst people living in the seismic regions is increasing and they are now aware that for a small additional cost they can get a much higher Earthquake Protection for their buildings than what is mandatory as per the seismic codes. As the seismic codes are based on the Life-Safety / Earthquake Resistant design so they are aiming to prevent a total building collapse in case of a major earthquake, thereby saving lives.