History of the Shake Table

  • 2001

    2001 Shaketable History

    The Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table Facility (LHPOST) at UC San Diego was designed in 2001-2002, and built during 2002-2004, as part of the NSF NEES Network.

  • 2004

    2004 Shaketable History

    Since its commissioning in 2004, 35 landmark projects have been conducted on the shake table. 

  • 2005

    2005 Shaketable History

    The LHPOST became the first known large-scale structural testing laboratory in the United States to demonstrate compliance with the International Standards Organization ISO/IEC 17025.

  • 2006

    2006 Shaketable History

    The first comprehensive research project on the LHPOST was a 7-story full-scale slice of a reinforced concrete residential building with cantilever structural walls.

  • 2009

    2009 Shaketable History

    Researchers conducted the first comprehensive system-level earthquake simulation test of a full-scale interactive soil-retaining wall structure supporting a sound wall.

  • 2010

    2010 Shaketable History

    A second in a series of full-scale uniaxial tests of an 80-foot-tall wind turbine with a rated power of 65 kW was conducted on the LHPOST to explore the seismic response when subjected to strong earthquake motions. It is the only outdoor shake table in the world that is capable of testing a full-scale wind turbine. 

     

  • 2011

    2011 Shaketable History

    During a one-of-a-kind test in 2011, researchers investigated the safety of a five-story building and its non-structural components, such as elevators, stairs, and facades. After the seismic tests, researchers investigated how the fire spread in the earthquake-damaged building.

  • 2015

    2015 Shaketable History

    UC San Diego received a $5.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to run the world’s largest outdoor shake table for an additional five years as part of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) program.

  • 2018

    2018 Shaketable History

    UC San Diego received a $16.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Natural Hazard Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) network awarded on October 1, 2018. With additional funding from UC San Diego, the LHPOST started a 3 ½ year project (one year for design and 2 ½ years of construction) to upgrade the system's one to six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) capabilities.

  • 2022

    2022 Shaketable History

    The updated LHPOST6 resumed operations for research and commercial projects, and can now reproduce the full 3D earthquake motions that represent the ground moving in all six degrees of freedom — longitudinal, lateral, vertical, roll, pitch, and yaw.

  • 2023

    2023 Shaketable History

    Testing began on a full-scale 10-story, a 115-foot tall mass timber building, the tallest structure ever tested on an outdoor shake table.