Design and Technology is a practical student text for CXC.

This the fourth volume of five from the 28th IMAC on Structural Dynamics and Renewable Energy, 2010, brings together 29 chapters on the Dynamics of Civil Structures. It presents early findings from experimental and computational investigations of Civil Structures, including studies such as Characterization of a Strongly Nonlinear Laboratory Benchmark System, A Non-destructive Technique for the Health Monitoring of Tie-rods in Ancient Buildings, Estimating Effective Prestress Force on Grouted Tendon by Impact Responses, Experimental Investigation of Dynamic Load Estimation Using Small-scale Testing, and Prediction of Prestress Force on Grouted Tendon by Experimental Modal Analysis.

This volume and its companion volume includes the edited versions of the principal lectures and selected papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Optimization and Decision Support Systems in Civil Engineering. The Institute was held in the Department of Civil Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh from June 25th to July 6th 1989 and was attended by eighty participants from Universities and Research Institutes around the world. A number of practising civil and structural engineers also attended. The lectures and papers have been divided into two volumes to reflect the dual themes of the Institute namely Optimization and Decision Support Systems in Civil Engineering. Planning for this ASI commenced in late 1986 when Andrew Templeman and I discussed developments in the use of the systems approach in civil engineering. A little later it became clear that much of this approach could be realised through the use of knowledge-based systems and artificial intelligence techniques. Both Don Grierson and John Gero indicated at an early stage how important it would be to include knowledge-based systems within the scope of the Institute. The title of the Institute could have been: 'Civil Engineering Systems' as this would have reflected the range of systems applications to civil engineering problems considered by the Institute. These volumes therefore reflect the full range of these problems including: structural analysis and design; water resources engineering; geotechnical engineering; transportation and environmental engineering.