Customer Reviews

Seismic Design of Building Structures: A Professional's Introduction to Earthquake Forces and Design Details

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I purchased this book and several others to review for the Civil PE exam and California's special seismic exam. Although it's a fairly slim volume, it contains exactly the information you need to master in order to do well on the seismic exam--no more, no less. Also, since it has copies of the UBC tables needed for the exam questions, you could actually use it during the exam as a reference instead of buying the UBC, which is much more expensive. Even though I had both, I found it more convenient to use this book during the exam. P.S. to Mr. Lendvay: I passed.

I purchased the 7th edition of this book in late 1999 for study of the April 2000 California Special Seismic Exam for Civil Engineers. This book claims to be "A Professional's Introduction to Earthquake Forces and Design Details," but falls well short of any such description.

While small parts of this book are useful, the theoretical discussions in the vibration and diaphragm theorey chapters are disjointed and incomprehensible. Often formulas are published without explanation or even defining the variables. The readings do not prepare you for trying the example problems and the solutions are not adequately described so that you can learn from the practice.

Overall, save your money and check out a review book at the local library.