Earthquakes and Acoustic Emission: Selected Papers from the 11th International Conference on Fracture, Turin, Italy, March 20-25, 2005 (Balkema--Proceedings ... in Engineering, Water and Earth Sciences)

Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy generated during the fracture of stressed rock within the Earth's crust. The energy radiates outwards from the source as seismic waves and vibrates the ground. This phenomenon is similar to what happens in materials under load and is called Acoustic Emission (AE). On the other hand, the AE monitoring technique is analogous to the one employed in earthquake control, where seismic waves reach the monitoring stations placed on the Earth's surface. Although they take place on very different scales, these two phenomena - earthquakes in geophysics and damage in structural materials - have similarities. In both cases, there is a release of elastic energy from sources located inside a medium. Content: Preface 1 Seismic Mechanics and Earthquakes 1.1 Earthquake phenomenology and dynamics 1.2 Mechanics of friction and faulting 2 Structural Failure and Acoustic Emission 2.1 AE theoretical studies 2.2 AE testing on concrete and concrete structures 2.3 AE testing on steel, composites and other materials 2.4 AE structural monitoring and damage assessment Author index Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy during the fracture of stressed rock within the Earth‘s crust. This phenomenon is similar to that which occurs in materials under load, and although they take place on very different scales, these two phenomena - earthquakes in geophysics and damage in structural materials - have similarities.

This book outlines the theory of topics related to earthquakes and acoustic emission, discusses the latest developments in this area and includes the latest international achievements in the field of mechanics of materials and geophysics, presenting th