Ioana Patringenaru
Associate Director, Media Relations, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Phone: 619-253-4474
Email: ipatring@ucsd.edu
Marti LaChance
Communications Manager, NHERI NSF
Phone: 765-918-6517
Email: lachance@purdue.edu
On a recent afternoon, two Jacobs School engineers equipped with 3D glasses stood in front of a towering 12’ digital reproduction of a six-story building, projected onto a curved wall of screens. They had tested the building a few weeks before, putting its light-weight steel frame through a series of increasingly powerful earthquake and fire tests on the world’s largest outdoor shake table at UC San Diego. Now researchers were zooming in and out of the building’s digital twin to assess damage. Full Story
A team of researchers from the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) will be conducting burn tests aimed at better understanding the effects of post-earthquake fires on cold-formed steel-framed buildings and assessing various methods for preventing appliances and broken gas mains from igniting fires during quakes. Full Story
A team of engineers is testing a six-story, lightweight steel-frame building on the world’s largest outdoor seismic shake table this month at the University of California San Diego. The goal is to better understand how cold-formed steel structures withstand earthquakes and the fires that may follow. This is the tallest cold-formed steel-frame structure to ever undergo tests on a shake table. Full Story
For the past year, Tara Hutchinson has been trying to figure out what will happen to a tall building made from thin steel beams when "the big one" hits. To do that, she has erected a six-story tower that rises like a lime-green finger from atop a shrub-covered hill on the outskirts of San Diego, California. Hundreds of strain gauges and accelerometers fill the building, so sensitive they can detect wind gusts pressing against the walls. Now, Hutchinson just needs an earthquake. Full Story
Today on In Case You Missed It: Stanford engineers are using a robot to understand the way humans move through a crowded space. University of California, San Diego researchers are using the world's largest outdoor shake table to simulate earthquakes and fire to a six story building. If you can get into topics unrelated to Dallas and police shootings this weekend, German churches are using wifi to try to lure new attendees. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd. Full Story
Researchers at UC San Diego rocked and rattled a six-story steel frame building on a giant shake table to see how the structure would withstand major earthquakes. The shaking simulated an earthquake of the 6.7 magnitude that occurred in 1994 in Los Angeles, causing significant damage. During the test, the building shuddered and let out a hollow, grinding sound but remained standing. The water heaters and at least some of the flat-screen TVs seemed to remain in place, though researchers still need to review drone footage to see exactly how the building fared inside and out. Full Story
A 5.2 magnitude earthquake jolted San Diego last week serving as a reminder of the dangers earthquakes present. On Wednesday, researchers from UC San Diego (UCSD) tested the use of drones to help better prepare San Diego during an earthquake. UCSD researchers flew two drones in and around a building at the shake table in Scripps Ranch. The building was six-story structure, similar to a residential apartment complex complete with utilities inside. Along with other cameras, the drones essentially gave the building an X-ray or MRI while it was jolted with magnitude 6.7 quake. Full Story
Just days after a moderate 5.2 magnitude earthquake rattled the desert inland from Los Angeles and San Diego, the engineering department at UC San Diego plans to conduct what it calls the largest simulated earthquake test Wednesday afternoon. A six-story building has been constructed on an outdoor shake table at UCSD with support from federal and state government agencies as well as a number of building industry sponsors. The main sponsor is SWS Panel and Truss, builders of the engineered Mid-Rise Cold-Formed Steel Building Wall Systems used to create the test building. Full Story