研究室紹介

Originally buildings have a role of shelter to protect us from the rages of nature. However, when the buildings are destroyed by an earthquake shaking, they become dangerous weapons to kill people. In order not to change the buildings into dangerous weapons, we have to not only build the buildings strongly against the earthquake shaking, but also understand the characteristics of the earthquake ground motions that are the enemy for the buildings. Because earthquake ground motions change greatly depending on the underground structures, it is important to grasp them to understand characteristics of the ground motions.

Based on modeling of underground structures and computer simulation of earthquake ground motions, in our laboratory, we are trying to solve various problems concerning underground structures and earthquake ground motions, such as the elucidation of the cause of severe earthquake motions that have a major influence on the seismic safety of buildings.

In such research, we think that it is very important to find out useful information for understanding characteristics of earthquake motions and underground structures from observed data. We not only use data observed by ourselves, but also observed data provided from the public seismic observation networks which have been dramatically expanded in recent years. In addition, we actually observe microtremors caused by various vibrations, such as traffic vibrations and ocean waves, in the study area, and use them for research.