Publisher's Synopsis
Soil Dynamics is the branch of Soil Mechanics that studies the behavior of soil deposits and earth structures subjected to dynamic loads. It instigated in the first quarter of the 20th century with the need to understand and eliminate the vibrations of foundations caused by heavy rotating machinery. It has become since an essential component of Earthquake Engineering (recognized even by some structural engineers), and it has found a number of other important practical applications. In the field of earthquake engineering, structures of high societal or economical importance such as nuclear power plants, arch dams, hospitals and bridges demand for detailed design accounting for dynamic soil-structure interaction. However, the incorporation of dynamic soil-structure interaction in the analysis is quite demanding from the computational point of view. Therefore, it is important to investigate the relative importance of dynamic soil-structure interaction. However, engineering community used to talk about soil-structure interaction only when these interaction forces are able to change the basement motion as compared to the free-field ground motion (i.e. motion recorded on the free surface of the soil without structure). So, historically the conventional definition of SSI is different from simple occurrence of the interaction forces: these forces occur for every structure, but not always they are able to change the soil motion. Advanced Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering presents recent advances in soil dynamics and Earthquake Engineering with special emphasis on soil liquefaction, soil-structure interaction, seismic safety of dams and underground monuments, mitigation strategies against landslide and fire whirlwind resulting from earthquakes and vibration. It gives a broad perspective of the concepts and theories of soil dynamics; highlighting the issues involved in the design of Geotechnical structures in the seismic environment. The book chapters cover several interesting research topics contributed by world-wide researchers and experts. This volume will be of valuable for students and researchers working in the fields of structural and earthquake engineering as well as an assisting tool to civil engineers working on construction and repair of engineering structures.
