Critical Excitation Methods in Earthquake Engineering

Since the occurrence of earthquakes and their properties are very uncertain even with the present knowledge, it is too difficult to define reasonable design ground motions especially for important buildings. In the seismic resistant design of building structures, the concept of s knowledge, the concept of 'critical excitation' and the structural design based upon this concept can become one of such new paradigms. This book introduces a new probabilistic and energy-based critical excitation approach to overcome several problems in the scientific and rational modelling of ground motions. The author hopes that this book will help the development of new seismic-resistant design methods of buildings for such unpredicted or unpredictable ground motions.