To learn how sustainable timber high-rises respond to seismic forces, researchers put one on the world’s largest “shake table.”
One sunny morning last month, an earthquake jolted northeast San Diego. Minutes later, another temblor hit, causing a 10-story wood building to sway.
The quakes, though, were triggered by a computer and the shaking was confined to a 1,000-square-foot platform on which the building — a full-size test model — stood.
The structure is the tallest ever subjected to simulated earthquakes on the world’s largest high-performance “shake table,” which uses hydraulic actuators to thrust the steel platform through six degrees of motion to replicate seismic force. The shake-table trials at a University of California at San Diego facility are part of the TallWood Project, an initiative to test the seismic resiliency of high-rise buildings made of mass timber. An engineered wood building material, mass timber is increasingly popular as a more sustainable alternative to carbon-intensive concrete and steel.
