Shaking Testers Means That Buildings And Bridges Are Safer

Since the world is becoming a little dangerous to live in, given all the earthquakes that are happening of late, scientists came up with a vibration shaker system which can predict how buildings and bridges will react if earth tremors and the like occur. Putting vibration test systems on a building will send out a series of figures so that architects and specialists can fine tune the structure to make it safer for all concerned.

For example, in Japan, where earth tremors are quite regular, they needed to find some way of stopping their high rise buildings from collapsing at the first sign of a quake. They did this by using this system to see how much stress current buildings could take. Of course, they did this on mock up buildings in the laboratory, but the effect was the same. What they discovered led to the newer buildings having huge springs in the foundations so that they would absorb most of the vibration from the earthquake up to a very high degree. By absorbing and dissipating this stress, the building sitting atop the springs went virtually unscathed. Although, sitting a high rise on top of giant springs seems a little strange, this is now common place in that part of the world and countless lives have been saved because of it for sure.

On the other end of the scale, even those buildings that are just a couple of stories high have all had their designs put to the test. Architects who design some very unusual buildings will also have to subject them to this kind of test before the building is complete. Although some of this work will be done purely on paper, there is still a need for equipment like this before the final touches are done to the building. In fact, is the tweaking of the final plan which finishes off the building to the standards which are widely accepted, anything less than this will result in loss of life at the very extreme?

When it comes to things like bridges or any structure that will carry heavy loads, this system is used to see how much movement there is related to load weight, speed of vehicle, or affects from weather conditions. In very high winds, bridges can be closed down since they will not be able to cope with all the stresses that they are put under. This is rather unusual to say the least, but after the weather has passed, the bridge has to be checked for damage.

If the bridge has been tested beforehand, they will certainly know if it can take up to a maximum load and wind force and anything above this will incur extra shoring up of cables, roadways and anything else that may have weakened the structure to the point where it could even collapse. We should all be grateful then that this kind of system is in existence and used by engineers and architects around the world to keep people safe.

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