| The Earthquake Engineering Handbook is not only timely, reflecting the most recent research in earthquake engineering, but also comprehensive, covering more than 30 topics. Written by a panel of internationally known experts, the Handbook provides applications and practical information to help solve real-world problems faced by civil, structural, geotechnical, and environmental engineers. The Handbook also serves as an excellent resource for researchers and students wishing to extend their knowledge of earthquake engineering.
Earthquake Engineering Handbook provides the essential elements of each subject, from the fundamentals, geoscience, and structural aspects to the social and economic impact of earthquakes. It also emphasizes professional applications and offers ready-to-use materials, including many formulas and tables that give immediate answers to real problems, and covers both the traditional and the new and innovative practices of earthquake engineering.
International expert authors include Jorma K. Arros, Horst Brandes, Wai-Fah Chen, Mustafa Erdik, Ronald Hamburger, Mahmoud Khater, Dennis Kuzak, David L. McCormick, Charles Scawthorn, Hope Seligson, Kim Shoaf, Paul Thenhaus, and many more.
- Offers an historical perspective, an overview of the framework for earthquake risk management, and an introduction to dynamics
- Covers geoscience topics, including geology, tectonics, liquefaction, and tsunamics, with emphasis on strong ground motion
- Addresses the range of structures, from building to bridges to the infrastructure of power, transportation and communications systems
- Stresses professional applications and ready-to-use materials
- Includes 1,000 illustrations
From the Preface
The Handbook of Earthquake Engineering is a comprehensive reference and resource work covering the spectrum of disciplines required for mitigation of earthquake effects and design of earthquake-resistant structures. It has been written with the practitioner in mind. The focus is on a graduate engineer with a need for a single reference source to keep abreast of new techniques and practices, as well as review standard practices.
Earthquake engineering requires first of all knowledge of the geologic causes of, and expected shaking, liquefaction, and other effects that result from a strong earthquake. It also requires a good understanding of the impact these natural effects have on humankind, ranging from our buildings and other structures to the entire built and even social environment. In this regard, earthquakes are an almost unique natural phenomenon, in that they affect virtually everything within a region - even to furnishings within a building, and underground structures.
To this end, the Handbook is divided into five parts. Initially, Part I reviews the basic problem of earthquakes from a historical perspective, provides an overview of the framework within which earthquake risk is managed and an introduction to dynamics, since earthquakes are most fundamentally a dynamic process and problem. Part II of the Handbook addresses the geoscience aspects, covering geology, tectonics, liquefaction and tsunamis, focusing especially on earthquakes strong ground motion.
Parts II and IV cover the broad spectrum of structures, from buildings built of steel, concrete, wood and masonry, to special structures such as bridges and equipment, to the variety of infrastructure called lifelines - that is, the water, power, transportation and other systems and components without which modern urban society cannot function. Earthquake structural engineering in the last decade has also seen a burst of new technology intended to avoid rather than resist the forces of earthquakes. These topics, base isolation and structural control, are also included.
Because earthquakes affect not only the built but also the social environment, in all aspects, Part V addresses special topics that the earthquake engineer must be cognizant of, if not indeed be expert in. An important aspect of this is the social and economic impacts of earthquakes, which in recent years have assumed increasing importance. |
