1. Earthquake Engineering

2. “8.9 Quake Strikes Japan—Nation’s worst in 140 years”
Airport, Sendai, Japan
Fukushima-Daichi nuclear power plant

3. Earthquakes Past and Present
Sendai, Japan (8.9 magnitude)
historical Seismicity Map

4. A pan-global issue….

5. Some Major Earthquakes, Past and Present
Christchurch, NZ 2011
Talca, Chile 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2010
Guandong, China, 2008
Fukuoka, Japan, 2005
Izmit, Turkey, 1999
Northridge, CA, 1994
Mexico City, 1985

6. Why bother?

7. Sendai Japan Earthquake 2011
Amazing engineering: Buildings Sway Without Collapsing

8. Nepal 2015

9. Different Buildings
Different model parameters

10. The Fundamental Questions
Can we predict how different buildings will respond to an earthquake?
How can we use this information to engineer a safe structure

11. X/Y f r r

12. Base Excitation: More Applications

13. Vibrational Energy Harvesting
“Mechanical energy also can be harvested using electromagnetic harvesters that utilize motion through a magnetic field to produce electric energy. To maximize power output, the harvester is mechanically tuned to an optimized resonant frequency present within the application environment…”
Image source:
Image source:

15. Harvest Season

16. Tabas, Iran 1978 Earthquake
Acceleration record is messy. No way to integrate Duhamel’s integral. No worries, computers to the rescue!
Relative motion of building and ground
Impulse Response Function
Measured Acceleration/USGS data

17. z = 0.05 is assumed marks |z|max
Ground acceleration (units of g)
z = 0.05 is assumed
Z(t) meters
marks |z|max
Z(t) meters
If we found |z|max for a continuous range of wo, we’d get the Spectral Displacement
(Displacement Spectrum)
Z(t) meters