- Date: Friday, July 28
- Time: 1 p.m.
- Place: Structural Engineering Laboratory, Room 129, 2246
Main Mall, UBC - Parking: Available at the Health Sciences Parkade. Enter
at Gate 1 off University
Boulevard and turn left at East Mall.
There will be “a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on” this Friday when
UBC earthquake experts subject a full-scale, two-storey house to
a 6.7-magnitude quake.
The test, which will take place on the largest shake table in North
America, will show how a typical wood-frame engineered home would
survive a West Coast earthquake.
The house will undergo shaking similar in magnitude to that experienced
at locations in the Los Angeles area during the 1994 Northridge,
California earthquake. The test is part of a project that marks
the first time anyone has conducted earthquake simulation studies
with a full-scale house in Canada.
“The ability to use a full-scale house is important because it
provides us with a better idea of how a residential home will behave
under severe shaking. It takes us beyond what we can learn through
a computer simulation,” says Civil Engineering Prof. Carlos Ventura.
“The results will help us improve the design of wood construction
homes,” he says. “This and other tests that we are conducting will
have an impact on the wood construction industry, the engineering
profession, the insurance industry and virtually all British Columbians
concerned about earthquake safety. Our research results will affect
wood construction in British Columbia, California and Japan.”
Ventura and his research collaborators are concerned that current
building codes in Canada exempt small buildings from any seismic
design requirements. He warns that a large number of homes in the
Lower Mainland and the province would likely fare poorly in the
event of a major quake.
The July 28 test is part of a larger research project involving
TBG Seismic Consultants of Victoria and Simpson Strong-Tie of California,
as well as Forest Renewal B.C. and the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada.
The house to be tested is modeled after an engineered home — a
house designed by a structural engineer to ensure that all loads
are properly and safely transferred to the foundation. Later this
fall, a similar test on a house of more typical B.C. construction
will be conducted. Ventura and his research team will compare the
results and make recommendations to improve earthquake safety for
engineered homes in B.C.
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