Fundamentals of Earthquake Engineering

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a basic understanding of earthquakes. The chapter will first discuss the cause of earthquakes and then define commonly used terms, explaining how earthquakes are measured, discussing the distribution of seismicity, and finally, explain how seismicity can be characterized. Earthquakes are broad-banded vibratory ground motions, resulting from a number of causes including tectonic ground motions, volcanism, landslides, rockbursts, and man-made explosions. Tectonic-related earthquakes are the largest and most important and are caused by the fracture and sliding of rock along faults within the Earth’s crust. A fault is a zone of the earth’s crust within which the two sides have moved and may be hundreds of miles long and as well as one hundred miles deep and are sometimes not readily apparent on the ground surface. Earthquakes initiate a number of phenomena or agents, called seismic hazards, which can cause significant damage to the built environment, including fault rapture, vibratory ground motion, inundation, various kinds of ground failure, fire, or hazardous materials release. In a particular earthquake event any hazard can dominate and historically each has caused major damage and great loss of life in an earthquake. Shaking is the dominant and most widespread agent of damage for most earthquakes. Shaking near the actual earthquake rupture last only during the time when the fault ruptures, a process that takes only seconds or a few minutes. The seismic waves generated by the rupture propagate long after the movement on the fault has stopped. Typically, earthquake ground motions are powerful enough to cause damage only in the near field (within a few tens of kilometers from the causative fault) but in a few instances, long period motions have caused significant damage at great distances, to selected lightly damped structures. A prime example of this was the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake, where numerous collapses of mi- and high-rise buildings were due to a magnitude 8.1`earthquake occurring at a distance of approximately 400 km from Mexico City.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780849372346
• Corporate Authors:

  CRC Press

  6000 Broken Sound Parkway, NW, Suite 300
  Boca Raton, FL  United States  33487
• Authors:
  • Swathorn, Charles
• Publication Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Glossary; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 33p
• Monograph Title: Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Earthquake engineering; Earthquakes; Fault location; Fault monitoring; Faulting; Landslides; Measurement of specific phenomena; Seismicity; Tsunamis
• Identifier Terms: San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
• Uncontrolled Terms: Earthquake damage; Earthquake shaking; Fault size; Ground motion models
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Design; Geotechnology; Highways; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01041519
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780849372346
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 30 2007 1:31PM