arthquake Resistant Design and Risk Reduction Second Edition

Abstract

This book is intended to help professionals of a wide range of disciplines in their attempts to reduce the social and economic risks of earthquakes. Earthquake risk reduction involves so many issues in planning, design, regulation, quality control and risk assessment, that it is difficult for any individual to gain a full perspective on the issue, or for any society to move forward in the quest at the desired speed. The principal objectives are to: • discuss the chief aspects of earthquake risk and their evaluation; • present methods of reducing or managing a range of earthquake risks; • give guidance on topics where no generally accepted method is currently available; • suggest procedures to be adopted in earthquake regions having no official zoning or lateral force regulations; and • indicate some of the more important specialist literature. The general principles of this book apply to the whole built environment, while the more detailed sections relate to selected aspects of it. Whereas an attempt has been made to provide guidance on most of the more important issues, the coverage cannot be exhaustive in a single book. The author published the predecessor to this book, under the title Earthquake Risk Reduction, in 2003. However because of the popularity of the previous title Earthquake Resistant Design, a new title combining the titles of my 1977, 1987 and 2003 books has been chosen for the present edition. In the six years or so since writing the 2003 edition, much progress has continued to be made in understanding earthquakes and in how to build more safely. In some areas of study great developments have occurred, such as in various aspects of seismic hazard, hazard analysis, Damage Avoidance Design and retrofitting techniques. However, one of the great difficulties for the designers of earthquake resistant property arises simply from the enormous volume of literature being produced on each of the many specialisms within the overall subject area. Hopefully, this book will help some of us to find our way better through this maze. This book was written mainly, but not only, from the standpoint of designers trying to keep a broad perspective on the total process, starting from the nature of the loading through to the details of construction. To this end, the successful overall format of my pr