civil engineering breakthrough 2013
The Earthquake-Resilient Building
The Brilliant Idea: A replaceable, building-wide system to help hospitals, apartment buildings and office towers survive severe seismic shaking.
By Logan Ward and the Editors of Popular Mechanics
September 30, 2010 6:30 AM
Elastic high-strength steel cables run down the center of the system’s frame. The cables control the rocking of the building and, when the earthquake is over, pull it back into proper alignment.
A steel frame situated around a building’s core or along exterior walls offers structural support. The frame’s columns, however, are free to rock up and down within steel shoes secured at the base. Steel fuses (in blue) at the frame’s center twist and contort to absorb seismic energy. Like electrical fuses, when they “blow out” they can be replaced, restoring the structural system to pre-earthquake conditions.
(Illustration by Sinelab)
Innovators: Gregory Deierlein, Stanford University; Jerome F. Hajjar, Northeastern University
For decades, the goal of seismic engineers has seemed straightforward: Prevent building collapse. And so they add steel braces to a skyscraper’s skeleton or beefier rebar to concrete shear walls. After absorbing the brunt of seismic shaking, however, the compromised structures often must be demolished. “The building, in a sense, sacrifices itself to save the occupants,” says Gregory Deierlein, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineer. A team Deierlein led with Jerry Hajjar, a Northeastern University engineer, hopes to change that, designing a system that protects both people and the structures they live and work in.
Last fall, the engineers successfully tested a 26-foot-tall, three-story, steel-frame building outfitted with the new system, built atop the E-Defense shake table—the world’s largest earthquake simulator—in Miki City, Japan. Steel “fuses,” not structural elements, absorbed the shock of an earthquake greater than magnitude 7, and cables pulled the building
The Brilliant Idea: A replaceable, building-wide system to help hospitals, apartment buildings and office towers survive severe seismic shaking.
By Logan Ward and the Editors of Popular Mechanics
September 30, 2010 6:30 AM
Elastic high-strength steel cables run down the center of the system’s frame. The cables control the rocking of the building and, when the earthquake is over, pull it back into proper alignment.
A steel frame situated around a building’s core or along exterior walls offers structural support. The frame’s columns, however, are free to rock up and down within steel shoes secured at the base. Steel fuses (in blue) at the frame’s center twist and contort to absorb seismic energy. Like electrical fuses, when they “blow out” they can be replaced, restoring the structural system to pre-earthquake conditions.
(Illustration by Sinelab)
Innovators: Gregory Deierlein, Stanford University; Jerome F. Hajjar, Northeastern University
For decades, the goal of seismic engineers has seemed straightforward: Prevent building collapse. And so they add steel braces to a skyscraper’s skeleton or beefier rebar to concrete shear walls. After absorbing the brunt of seismic shaking, however, the compromised structures often must be demolished. “The building, in a sense, sacrifices itself to save the occupants,” says Gregory Deierlein, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineer. A team Deierlein led with Jerry Hajjar, a Northeastern University engineer, hopes to change that, designing a system that protects both people and the structures they live and work in.
Last fall, the engineers successfully tested a 26-foot-tall, three-story, steel-frame building outfitted with the new system, built atop the E-Defense shake table—the world’s largest earthquake simulator—in Miki City, Japan. Steel “fuses,” not structural elements, absorbed the shock of an earthquake greater than magnitude 7, and cables pulled the building