Earthquake+proof-structures

Earthquakes are concentrated in certain areas, but they can happen almost anywhere around the world. Furthermore, some areas that are especially prone to large earthquakes are also densely populated (California and Alaska in the USA, and places like Indonesia, Chile, and Japan abroad). People need places to live, and people usually don't want their home's and cities to crumble due to an earthquake.

So how do you design structures to withstand the ground motion caused by earthquakes?

Today you will conduct research in order to determine how engineers and city planners design structures to stand-up under conditions that would normally cause these structures to collapse. By the end of class, you should have a page of notes to help you answer the following questions:
 * 1) What is earthquake engineering?
 * 2) What technologies exist to help prevent damage to structures during an earthquake?
 * 3) How do these technologies work to prevent damage?
 * 4) Are certain substrates (ground types) more likely to cause damage to structures than others? If so, why?
 * 5) Are certain materials (like wood, cement, steel, etc.) more likely to resist damage than others? If so, why?
 * 6) Are buildings of a certain shape or size less likely to suffer damage than others? If so, why?

Here are some websites to help you get started: Bright Hub - What is earthquake engineering? Whole Building Design Guide - seismic design principles StrucCalc - A private website that offers consulting for design projects Wikipedia - Earthquake engineering