Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering
Earthquake Engineering is a branch of Civil Engineering that is in charge of protecting the society from natural disasters like Earthquakes. This branch of Civil Engineering mainly studies how structures behave when they are hit by a seismic wave. Earthquake engineers main responsibilities are to design structures that can stand an earthquake and to make sure that all structures have the required building codes. In addition, they need to estimate the probable damages to structures after an earthquake.
Many lives were lost because of collapsing structures during an earthquake. As mentioned in class an earthquake will never kill anybody but the results of an earthquake are what kill people. In 1909, more than 100,000 people died in Italy after an earthquake because of the poor unprepared structures. Sometimes people may not get hurt because of the land shaking but from landslides or tsunamis that happen after an earthquake.
Safe structures are the structures that do not endanger the lives of people inside or around it by collapsing completely or partially after or during an earthquake. Critical structures such as hospitals, nuclear power plants, schools and dams not only are built to survive an earthquake but also to remain in operation. Extra money is always spent when building those structures to ensure that they will survive an earthquake.
Engineers set up all building codes based on accurate calculations that are based on theories and actual observations known as seismic assessment. . There are two different types of seismic performance assessments, experimental assessment and numerical assessment. Experimental assessments are very expensive since engineers need to build a scaled m...
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...nical Engineers study soils and rocks to make sure or investigate if a surface or a subsurface is appropriate to build a structure on or in it. One major thing that Geotechnical Engineers do is double-checking the placement of the foundations and if the soil under it could handle the amount of stress put. If soil assessment indicated something wrong with soil properties, it may be fixed through ground improvements like treating the soil mass. These processes helped in saving alot of money and time and it made buildings last longer.
Soil mechanics studies are the most related studies in Geotechnical Engineering to geology. It is analyzing the site conditions and the soil properties. Many soil properties need to be checked like the Atterberg Limits, which is the shrinkage limit. This indicates how much would the soil shrink because of weather and water limits.
Primary impacts are the result of the ground shaking causing buildings to collaspe. This than results in the secondary impacts which are usually tsunamis, fires, landslides and other catastrophic events. Tsunamis, a huge wave of water, are one of the worse things human life can face after an earthquake as they are known to destroy absolutely everything in there path. Landslides, another huge destruction, is often known to be worse than the earthquake itself. These can cause whole cities to be completely destroyed as in Alaska, Turnagain Heights. Fires also cause a huge path of destruction. Broken gas lines set gas free making one little spark cause an inferno. An example of this would be the great earthquake of 1906 in San Fransisco which caused 90% fire damage among everything
On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost due to structural failure in the left wing. On take-off, it was reported that a piece of foam insulation surrounding the shuttle fleet's 15-story external fuel tanks fell off of Columbia's tank and struck the shuttle's left wing. Extremely hot gas entered the front of Columbia's left wing just 16 seconds after the orbiter penetrated the hottest part of Earth's atmosphere on re-entry. The shuttle was equipped with hundreds of temperature sensors positioned at strategic locations. The salvaged flight recorded revealed that temperatures started to rise in the left wing leading edge a full minute before any trouble on the shuttle was noted. With a damaged left wing, Columbia started to drag left. The ships' flight control computers fought a losing battle trying to keep Columbia's nose pointed forward.
The dangerousness of earthquakes are rated from one to ten. One being you aren’t able to feel it and ten being VERY powerful. There was a deadly earthquake, almost no one survived. A deadly 7.2 earthquake occurred in the Central Philippines. All signs and clues pointed to the East Bohol Fault. A 6 rated earthquake that happened before, injured 300 people and caused a tsunami. But the 7.2 earthquake didn’t cause any tsunami. All of the dangerous earthquakes damaged ports, schools and airports; even a hospital collapsed killing at least 18 people. Children were injured in stampedes at two sports complexes while others rushed to the exits. Five people were killed in a earthquake - triggered landslide. People respond to a natural disaster by gathering resources, spreading the word, and government help.
Earthquakes can be very dangerous but what matters the most is that everybody is safe, and that we need to work together. One earthquake, in the Philippines, was truly devastating. It was classified as a 7.2 magnitude. The Philippines responded very well by gathering their resources, spreading the word, and giving donations. They bounced back very quickly.
According to the writers of Encyclopedia Britannica, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and fire caused 28,000 buildings to be destroyed, causing $350,000,000 in damage. This earthquake was one of the most devastating earthquakes ever. There are many views on this earthquake, and even some footage of it. The earthquake caused the fire, which was even more devastating than the earthquake itself, but they both still did a substantial amount of damage. Over 3000 people were killed, 250,000 left homeless, and the survivors camped in Golden Gate Park or Dunes West, and some fled to neighboring towns. (Encyclopedia Britannica). The eyewitness accounts “Comprehending the Calamity” by Emma Burke and “The Horrific Wreck of the City” by Fred Hewitt are both about the 1906 San
Also the number of jobs lost due to the earthquake was about 200,000. An estimate of about 250,000 people lost their homes due to the earthquake. The earthquake made many homeless. At the time of the earthquake mexico had strict building codes learning from past earthquakes in
Earthquake is the earth tremor that results from the sudden release of the pent-up energy in the earth’s crust. This released energy creates the seismic waves that determine the frequency, type and size of the earthquakes. Any earthquakes whose magnitude is bellow 5 on the Richter scale is considered weak, while the earthquakes whose magnitude is above 7on the Richter scale is considered potentially dangerous. The largest earthquake ever register in the history of man is the earthquake in Japan in 2011 which had a magnitude of 9.0 on the Mercalli scale(Seeram, pars. 4-5). While most earthquakes are causes by seismic events on the earth’s crust, these can be accelerated by natural events, or the activities of the human beings. For example, when the geological faults lines rapture, pressure is created in the earth’s crust forcing its way out thereby causing a break or sliding along the fault line. Volcanic activities are also known to cause earthquakes and so are nuclear test, bombs and landslides. The hypocenter is the initial point from which the raptures occur, while the epicenters is the ground directly above the hypocenter (Zacharias,, sec. A)
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal in April of 2015 and most houses there were crushed. Secondly, on http://www.chacha.com/question/how-much-weight-can-the-average-high-school-desk-hold,If a 7.8 magnitude were to hit here and we were in a two story building like BCHS if we went under a desk it can only hold 200-250 pounds ,as it says from chacha.com, which if a bunch of rubble fell down it would more than likely crush the person under the desk. Even if we did follow procedures for an earthquake drill we still have the same chances of dying than just doing anything. It would be a better chance of going outside away from anything which is just essentially a fire drill than just doing an earthquake drill. If schools revised their earthquake plan and did not think that the school's infrastructure was already good enough and
After the earthquake happens, many problems will occur; for example, there will be a problem of supply with goods or temporary dwellings. However, the most frightening problem is disease. After an earthquake, there are sanitary problems. If some diseases spread among the people, it will be difficult to cure the diseases because there will be almost no medical supplies and almost no food.
The effects of the Alaskan earthquake, unfortunately are what secured its place as one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded. From property damages, to the massive death toll, this earthquake devastated the lives of the people of anchorage, and multiple other towns within its destructive range. Unfortunately, the effects of an earthquake do not strictly come as one configuration. The disaster comes in the form of violent shaking of the earth, tsunamis, landslides and other incidents.
As we live in an earthquake prone region, it is important that our house is prepared for such disasters. The safety and precautionary measures need to be taken, otherwise there will be a continuous threat of physical and property damage in future. Reasonable investment today will reduce future cost and increase safety of the house. Moreover, investment in safety will increase value of the property, possibly increasing market price of the house in future. Hence, there are various positive outcomes of expenditures to make the house more secure.
I have conducted my research through interview with someone familiar with construction and development as how geometry is used in these fields.
Seismic hazards describe the expected events for dangerous due to earthquakes which is totally different with seismic risk. Seismic Risk is the losses of life and property because of earthquake (Zhenming Wang, 2009). Seismic hazard map is confirming the relative movement of various regions as on a city, province or country basis. It is significance for engineers to analyze seismic hazards by seismic hazard maps, especially for design an engineering structure. There are four procedures when identify deterministic hazard analysis (DSHA): 1. Reorganization all sources; 2. Choice of source; 3. Choice of “controlling earthquake” (fixed distance and magnitude); 4. Identify of hazard by controlling earthquake. (DOF,
Taher, R. (2011). General recommendations for improved building practices in earthquake and hurricane prone areas. San Francisco, CA: Architecture for Humanity Retrieved from
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).