STORY: :: Researchers use an earthquake simulator to test the structural integrity of a 10-storey building in California
:: The tests include re-enactments of a 6.9 magnitude tremor on light, high precision steel
:: June 23, 2025
:: San Diego, California
:: Ben Shafer, Johns Hopkins University
“So we’re looking for an innovative building system that we can use in the United States, that can work in earthquake country as well as everywhere else, can be constructed quickly, can be sustainable, you know, all the things that we need to try to build more housing and more commercial for the U.S..”
:: Tara Hutchinson, UC San Diego
“One big message that we have to get out, I guess, is we’d like to push the envelope for the use of light, high precision steel, and materials like this in moderate and (inaudible). Right now, design code prohibits us from going above six storeys or 65 feet, whatever comes first. So a design engineer cannot use this material to go above that storey level in building construction. We’ve already built it and now we’ve tested it under that design event and it looks and it’s retained its structural integrity, so I think we can already say it’s a success.”
The building’s skeleton is made from cold-formed sheets of construction-grade steel, that are then shaped at room temperature to make individual structural components.
The test also allowed them to investigate whether pipes and other building features remained intact.
