This is the first book on the market focusing specifically on the topic of geotechnical earthquake engineering. The book draws from the fields of seismology and structural engineering to present a broad, interdiciplinary view of the fundamental concepts in seismology, geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering.

This fascinating new book examines the issues of earthquake geotechnical engineering in a comprehensive way. It summarizes the present knowledge on earthquake hazards and their causative mechanisms as well as a number of other relevant topics. Information obtained from earthquake damage investigation (such as ground motion, landslides, earth pressure, fault action, or liquefaction) as well as data from laboratory tests and field investigation is supplied, together with exercises/questions.

Provides in-depth earthquake engineering analysis as applied to soils. Includes worked-out problems illustrating earthquake analyses and current seismic codes.

Disaster preparedness and response management is a burgeoning field of technological research, and staying abreast of the latest developments within the field is a difficult task. Geotechnical Applications for Earthquake Engineering: Research Advancements has collected chapters from experts from around the world in a variety of applications, frameworks, and methodologies, and prepared them in a form that serves as a handy reference and research guide to practitioners and academics alike. By protecting society with earthquake engineering, the latest research can make the world a safer place.

This book contains the full papers on which the invited lectures of the 4th International Conference on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering (4ICEGE) were based. The conference was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 25 to 28 June, 2007. The papers offer a comprehensive overview of the progress achieved in soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, examine ongoing and unresolved issues, and discuss ideas for the future.

Pseudo-static analysis is still the most-used method to assess the stability of geotechnical systems that are exposed to earthquake forces. However, this method does not provide any information about the deformations and permanent displacements induced by seismic activity. Moreover, it is questionable to use this approach when geotechnical systems are affected by frequent and rare seismic events. Incidentally, the peak ground acceleration has increased from 0.2-0.3 g in the seventies to the current value of 0.6-0.8 g. Therefore, a shift from the pseudo-static approach to performance-based analysis is needed. Over the past five years considerable progress has been made in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering Design (EGED). The most recent advances are presented in this book in 6 parts. The evaluation of the site amplification is covered in Part I of the book. In Part II the evaluation of the soil foundation stability against natural slope failure and liquefaction is treated. In the following 3 Parts of the book the EGED for different geotechnical systems is presented as follows: the design of levees and dams including natural slopes in Part III; the design of foundations and soil structure interaction analysis in Part IV; underground structures in Part V. Finally in Part VI, new topics like the design of reinforced earth retaining walls and landfills are covered.

Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics, as well as their interface with Engineering Seismology, Geophysics and Seismology, have all made remarkable progress over the past 15 years, mainly due to the development of instrumented large scale experimental facilities, to the increase in the quantity and quality of recorded earthquake data, to the numerous well-documented case studies from recent strong earthquakes as well as enhanced computer capabilities. One of the major factors contributing to the aforementioned progress is the increasing social need for a safe urban environment, large infrastructures and essential facilities. The main scope of our book is to provide the geotechnical engineers, geologists and seismologists, with the most recent advances and developments in the area of earthquake geotechnical engineering, seismology and soil dynamics.