Earthquake Analysis and Design of Industrial Structures – From the early dawn of civilization, human beings have been battling against nature to establish their supremacy. In this process, they have been fighting against a number of natural forces like hurricanes, tornados, flood, volcanic eruptions, and finally the earthquake.
A study carried out by UNESCO in 1999 shows that among all the natural phenomena, it is earthquake which has been the biggest killer of human lives and has incurred destruction of properties amounting to billions of dollars.1
Why do earthquakes occur in nature?. The topic has certainly fascinated human beings from Neanderthal age to modern times when geophysicists armed with state-of-the-art signal processing instruments have spent hours at observatories, trying to unravel its characteristics. Tectonic processes are continuous. The most glaring examples of modern tectonics are seismic events or earthquakes. These occur at an annual rate of up to 10 thousands. Most earth tremors are very hard to detect and can only be recorded by
sensitive instruments called seismographs. Yet, as many as hundred earthquakes per annum are destructive and one
catastrophic. This suggests that destructive earthquakes are violent movements of earth crust after a period of accumulation of stress. Series editors
Marek Banaszkiewicz, Warsaw, Poland
Janusz Pempkowiak, Sopot, Poland
Marek Lewandowski, Warsaw, Poland
Marek Sarna, Warsaw, Poland