ESTABLISHMENT OF EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING LABORATORY

Abstract

Although considering the dynamic behavior of buildings and bridges is of fundamental importance in modern structural design, undergraduate civil engineering students seldom develop an understanding of the way that these structures respond when acted upon by timevarying loads. Because this topic is of great social and economical importance, there is a need in current civil engineering programs to provide more formal training in structural dynamics and earthquake hazard mitigation at the undergraduate level. Further, many students in nonengineering disciplines would gain from such exposure to basic concepts in earthquake engineering. This paper traces the establishment and development of earthquake engineering in any Engineering Institution for focusing primarily on improving and developing the knowledge as well as research prospects in the field of earthquake engineering. The development of earthquake engineering laboratory is studied in the topmost Indian Institute of Technology viz. I.I.T. Roorkee and I.I.T. Kanpur, along with more specific detail on the development of innovative design principles and solutions, such as the employment of capacity design principles, the formulation of engineering-based design standards for house structures, and the development of base isolation systems for structures.