California is earthquake country and Wednesday, engineers at UC San Diego tested a six-story building designed for seismic study.
Imagine a six-story condo in San Diego in the midst of a 6.7 magnitude earthquake, the kind that devastated the community of Northridge in 1994.
Not only would that building be full of people, but also appliances, including stoves and water heaters.
Earlier this month, UC San Diego, in conjunction with a number of agencies and organizations, erected the building in Scripps Ranch on the university’s outdoor shake table, the world’s largest.
Over the course of several weeks, UCSD engineers and other interested observers want to determine if what’s called cold-form steel, a lighter weight steel used to frame low-rise structures, can be used in mid-rise buildings.
It’s believe cold-form steel makes buildings better able to withstand moderate to huge tremors.
In the coming weeks, an even bigger earthquake test will take place. The structure will also be set on fire so engineers can understand how structures withstand a likely blaze in the aftermath of a moderate to strong southern California earthquake.