Earthquake Engineering

This is one of the posts in a series of our posts that we discuss failures. Also check out the other posts in constructmagazine.com, where we discuss failures in different contexts of civil engineering. A Brief Introduction of Earthquakes vs. Structures: Earthquakes are very important aspect of most design in civil engineering, and for any type of structure. The fundamental earthquake principles as it applies to structures are of course the same, although there are specific items that apply to each structure. Here we will discuss earthquake related failures in buildings. Earthquakes result from movements of large land masses, which in turn affect structures, by making them move too. Since […] Read More

In seismic analysis of structures, Equivalent Static Analysis and Response Spectrum Analysis are two methods that analyze the elastic behavior of a structure, in other words, the behavior of the structure without considering any yields (plastic hinges). But how do they differ? Equivalent Static Analysis is the simplest most straightforward analysis, which will either suffice for simpler structures or you need to do anyway to get a feel for how would it be if the loading was static and the structure remained elastic. This method is good for short period, stiffer structures such as short buildings. Here the building is not tall enough for instance, to meaningfully produce higher vibration […] Read More