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:
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 mean "extremely strong" and "expensive" like the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza shown above.
Currently, the most powerful and cost-effective tool of the earthquake engineering is base isolation which makes use of passive structural vibration control technologies; see, e.g., the Cathedral structure to the left.
Some of the new state-of-the-art trends and/or projects in the field of Earthquake engineering are presented below.
Earthquake Shelter
One of the Japanese construction company has developed a revolutionary quake-proofed method for Japanese home owners. Instead of rather expensive quake-proofing of the whole home, it proposed a budget-friendly 6 x 6 x 6 ft shelter that could easily fit any small room which is, apparently, a fast and attractive solution.
Japan is one of the world most earthquake-prone countries: one tremor occurs there almost every five minutes. Therefore, the tenant of the homes like one depicted to the right will have now some peace of mind.
Emergency management
Emergency management (or disaster management) is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response (e.g. emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, etc.), as well as supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred. In general, any Emergency management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed. Effective emergency management relies on thorough integration of emergency plans at all levels of government and non-government involvement. Activities at each level (individual, group, community) affect the other levels. It is common to place the responsibility for governmental emergency management with the institutions for civil defense or within the conventional structure of the emergency services. In the private sector, emergency management is sometimes referred to as business continuity planning.
Emergency Management is one of a number of terms which, since the end of the Cold War, have largely replaced Civil defense, whose original focus was protecting civilians from military attack. Modern thinking focuses on a more general intent to protect the civilian population in times of peace as well as in times of war. Another current term, Civil Protection is widely used within the European Union and refers to government-approved systems and resources whose task is to protect the civilian population, primarily in the event of natural and human-made disasters. Within EU countries the term Crisis Management emphasises the political and security dimension rather than measures to satisfy the immediate needs of the civilian population. An academic trend is towards using the term disaster risk reduction, particularly for emergency management in a development management context. This focuses on the mitigation and preparedness aspects of the emergency cycle.
Recovery
The aim of the recovery phase is to restore the affected area to its previous state. It differs from the response phase in its focus; recovery efforts are concerned with issues and decisions that must be made after immediate needs are addressed.Recovery efforts are primarily concerned with actions that involve rebuilding destroyed property, re-employment, and the repair of other essential infrastructure. An important aspect of effective recovery efforts is taking advantage of a ‘window of opportunity’ for the implementation of mitigative measures that might otherwise be unpopular. Citizens of the affected area are more likely to accept more mitigative changes when a recent disaster is in fresh memory.
In the United States, the National Response Plan dictates how the resources provided by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 will be used in recovery efforts. It is the Federal government that often provides the most technical and financial assistance for recovery efforts in the United States.
BOOKS ON ERTHQUAKE ENGINEERING " STRUCTURES "
No comments:
Post a Comment