Seismic load

Seismic load is one of the basic concepts of earthquake engineering which means application of an earthquake-generated agitation[1] to a building structure or its model. It happens at contact surfaces of a structure either with the ground,[2] or with adjacent structures,[3] or with gravity waves from tsunami.

Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, heavily damaged at 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Seismic loading depends, primarily, on:

Sometimes, seismic load exceeds ability of a structure to resist it without being broken, partially or completely. Due to their mutual interaction, seismic loading and seismic performance of a structure are intimately related.

Other websites

Notes

  1. Hudson, D.E. (1979). Reading and Interpreting Strong Motion Accelerograms. EERI.
  2. The Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Portal
  3. Seismic Pounding between Adjacent Building Structures