Earthquake engineering

Earthquake engineering structures are those engineered to withstand various types of hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location.

Earthquake-proof and massive pyramid El Castillo, Chichen Itza

Earthquake engineering is treating its subject structures like defensive fortifications in military engineering but for the warfare on earthquakes. Both earthquake and military general design principles are similar: be ready to slow down or mitigate the advance of a possible attacker.

The main objectives of earthquake engineering are:

Snapshot from shake-table video [1] of testing base-isolated (right) and regular (left) building model

Understand interaction of structures with the shaky ground.

Foresee the consequences of possible earthquakes.

Design, construct and maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations and in compliance with building codes.

Earthquake engineering or earthquake-proof structure does not, necessarily, means extremely strong and expensive one like El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza shown above. Now, the most powerful and budgetary tool of the earthquake engineering is base isolation which pertains to the passive structural vibration control technologies. Earthquake engineering covers ability of various structures to withstand hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location.