Metal Shear Wall Earthquake Test, 11/22/06

Engineers at UC Berkeley's Structural Engineering Research Lab have developed a metal shear wall that proved strong enough for use in California and other earthquake-prone regions throughout the world. In this video of a seismic test, researchers subject a new metal shear wall system to 25,000 pounds of force and cyclic displacement, simulating the type of major earthquake expected to occur in the Bay Area. (00:33 min)

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/11/22_shear.shtml

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Education

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• UC
• Berkeley
• Cal
• Earthquake
• Shear
• Wall
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[thantawa]

Interesting. I saw much the same at a university in Japan when they had been testing dampers fot buildings.

[amaedesign]

A spring by itself would potentially amplify the effect if the quake was on a resonant frequency. Damped $prings as you suggest would be very expensive.

My guess is that the research was focusing on human survival of a quake, not expecting to make the structure survive undamaged.

[light4darkness]

Rivets popping all over, and it's strong enough? You can't be serious? What about a damped spring, that could take millions of cycles, and never need replacement?