Earthquake Engineering

Earthquake engineering designs and analyses structures with earthquakes in mind, for example buildings and bridges. The main objective of this analysis is to make these structures resistant to earthquakes. Earthquake engineers design structures that will not be damaged in small earthquakes or tremors and will not crumble in a serious earthquake situation. An earthquake engineer will assess the actual or anticipated seismic performance levels associated with the direct damage to a structure subject to specific ground shaking. This assessment can be done with an experimental or analytical approach. Experimental assessments are quite costly and are done by placing a scaled model of the structure being assessed onto a shake table to simulate the movement of the earth in an earthquake situation and then observing its behaviour. Analytical assessments are carried out to observe and record the seismic performance of structures. Earthquake engineers are more valuable in countries and areas where earthquake activity is high, however, their knowledge and expertise is important with any construction. Earthquake engineers have an input on the design of buildings and bridges to ensure they will withstand any motion related to seismic activity and they assist in upgrading and improving current buildings and structures, especially if they have been damaged by previous earthquake movements.