Anyone else watch tonights Smash Lab where they created two prototypes for dampening out the horizontal shock waves caused by an earthquake?

One style was effective for a minimal 4.0 quake, and effective for an equivalent of the Northridge quake (duration of their test was 15 seconds just like the Northridge quake), but failed when tested to over an 8.0, beyond a quake which has ever been reported.

The other style, though, WOW!, even at the highest equivalent rate beyond what anyone as recorded, the house stayed almost still, the only thing which fell was a tall and slender vase with a tall flower sticking up out of it. This system actually performed better the greater the movement was.

Of course, someone will need to take their primitive prototypes and make them suitable for real use, but the fact that they worked in a simulated quake that large, and the one worked with nothing damaged except a vase falling over - someone with $$$ backing needs to 'go for it' and complete all the designing and engineering needed to make it practical for use, and then manufacture the system - the basic design is there already, and it worked beautifully.

Not on the Smash Lab web site yet (I just checked before posting this).

In the extreme test, they shook 'the earth' back and forth 8 inches underneath the two story 'house' and the house just sat there. The only time the vase fell was when the 'earth' shaker slowed down, not during the highest part of the 'quake'.

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )

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