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Earthquake Engineering: Test Your Understanding
Teacher's Guide
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1. What are the underlying causes of earthquake damage to buildings?
Earthquakes can cause significant damage to the built environment due to fault rupture, vibratory
ground motion (shaking), inundation (tsunami, seiche, dam failure), various kinds of permanent
ground failure (liquefaction, landslide), and fire or hazardous materials release.
2. What three scales do engineers use to measure earthquake size (magnitude)?
The most important scales for measuring earthquake magnitude are surface-wave magnitude (Ms),
body-wave magnitude (mb), and the more commonly preferred moment magnitude (MW).
3. Critical Thinking: Where would you expect to find greater earthquake vulnerability: along a coastline
in Japan, or at an intercontinental region in China known for active faulting? Explain your reasoning.
Sample answer: Japan is located along a known earthquake zone, the Pacific's Ring of Fire. Thus, both
regions would be prone to earthquakes. However, the Ring of Fire has a higher incidence of strong
earthquakes, which, coupled with weaker soil and flood threat from tsunamis, makes this coastal
region a riskier development site.
4. Critical Thinking: An engineer wants to design a new bridge using the most up-to-date earthquake
engineering technologies. Which specific technologies might this engineer apply?
Sample answer: The bridge could have base isolators, so that the stability of each vertical stand
is independent from other stands. The bridge could also use new elastic and/or energy-absorbing
materials that allow for these stands to counteract earthquake motions.
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