Book excerpt: Until now, information on the dynamic loading of structures has been widely scattered. No other book has examined the different types of loading in a comprehensive and systematic manner, and looked at their signficance in the design process. The book begins with a survey of the probabilistic background to all forms of loads, which is particularly important to dynamic loads, and then looks at the main types in turn: wind, earthquake, wave, blast and impact loading. The relevant code provisions (Eurocode and UBC American) are detailed and a number of examples are used to illustrate the principles. A final section covers the analysis for dynamic loading, drawing out the concepts underlying the treatment of all dynamic loads, and the corresponding modelling techniques. Throughout there is a focus on the modelling of structures, rather than on classical structural dynamics.