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Shake Table Testing of a Full-Scale 10 Story Building

In San Diego, CA, construction is nearing completion for Shake Table Testing of A Full-Scale Resilient 10-Story Mass-Timber Building.  It was planned for late April, so the information should be available soon, if not already.

In early February they were reporting on final installation of the building exterior and sensors; see below.

Final Phase of Test Preparations – The project team, NHERI@UCSD site personnel and collaborators have focused on two major activities since the beginning of the year: final exterior façade installations, and preparation and installation of sensors throughout the building.

Click here and here for more details. 

More: Shaketable tests start in May

The tests are scheduled to start in May on the world’s only outdoor shake table. Located at the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center at the University of California San Diego, the earthquake simulator is part of NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure and, through NSF funding, was recently upgraded to six degrees of freedom to reproduce the full 3D ground motions that can occur during an earthquake. It is also now capable of testing  payloads of up to 2,000 tons, or more than 4 million pounds.

Tests will simulate earthquake motions recorded during prior earthquakes covering a range of earthquake magnitudes on the Richter scale, from magnitude 4 to magnitude 8. This will be done by accelerating the table to at least 1g, which could accelerate the top of the building to as much as 3gs. For reference, fighter pilots experience up to 9gs of acceleration in flight.

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