Earthquake Engineering

Advances in Earthquake Engineering
The economy of a country can determine how far and how fast will the nation develop. It depends on the amount of money that is available to get newer and betterresources for specific investigations or upgrades needed at the moment. As humans we know that all the inventions that surround us will always have more room for improvement and it’s in our hands toleave it the way it is or try to fulfill that room. Unfortunately for some countries like El Salvador that even if we were willing to help others, we don’t have the sufficient resources to do so. Butthere is always a chance that we could help to the development of the entire society through wealthier countries than us.
El Salvador is located along what is known as “the ring of fire” in thePacific Ocean, and there is an estimate that almost every day we have at least one quake. We also have recorded very strong quakes that have caught us unsuspected. Although we cannot prevent earthquakes tohappen, there are some ways to be prepared or at least be ready to take any precautions needed. Knowing that we are a very vulnerable country we need to look for the help of bigger countries likeJapan. Just like us they suffer many natural disasters including tsunamis and earthquakes. The only difference is they started building thinking about the future already. Thanks to their economy andresources, their infrastructure is way more advanced and resistant to quakes than ours. One of the most important equipment Japan has is the E-Defense Shake Table. It’s a platform that can support up to2.5 million pounds. In 2006 they made an experiment testing a building that weighted around 1 million pounds, because of the special steel used in the frames, at a magnitude of 7.5. The wonder of thisall was the structure nearly had cracks or any signs of an earthquake. This way Japanese proved that if only constructors and companies would invest a little bit more at the beginning of the project,...