... traditional Japanese methods. Traditional Japanese housing construction is based on a post-and-beam method with little lateral resistance. Exacerbating the problem is the practice of using thick mud and heavy tile for roofing, resulting in a structure with a very heavy roof and little resistance to the horizontal forces of earthquakes. U.S.-style frame housing with light-weight roofs is now coming into use in Japan and ... combined tensile and shear stresses. In one of the units, six of the eight main steel columns forming the lateral-load-resisting system had fractured. Despite the ser...

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