Engineers from Stanford University and the University of Illinois have developed a new kind of internal frame for buildings that will help keep them intact during an earthquake.
Current systems rely on subterranean rollers that absorb most of the energy from quakes, but if they are powerful enough, some of the excess force can cause buildings to sheer. The new design uses flexible tendons to transfer energy to a fuse at the base of the building. The building is dislodged from the foundation as the fuse absorbs all of the energy.
When the event is over, the fuse is usually destroyed, and the tendons restore the building to an upright orientation on the foundation.
After spending more than a decade developing this technology, the team tested it at Japan’’s Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center, where a model building was constructed and subjected to simulated earthquakes of extreme magnitudes, but the only damage that occurred was to the fuses.
The engineers who devised this technology are glad to see it work properly, but future engineers will be tasked with retrofitting existing buildings with it. Developments like these likely contribute to the 18 percent growth in the civil engineering industry projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
