Cornell lab studies earthquake impact on buried infrastructure

Ithaca (WSYR-TV) - The discussion of Wednesday's earthquake has already lasted much longer than the tremor itself. Fortunately, CNY escaped without any damage, but that's not always the case with earthquakes. A team of scientists at Cornell University is using a unique lab to study what these quakes can do to the infrastructure buried underground.

Housed in the enormous lab is a one-of-a-kind device, a giant box that uses four incredibly powerful pistons to exert the kind of pressure an earthquake can put on the ground it shakes.

"We regularly have earthquakes in that zone from Potsdam in New York State north, you'll see three to five quakes and they happen every year, smaller ones happen more frequently. They're not unusual, they only become unusual because we don't think of ourselves as being in an earthquake zone," said Tim Bond, Manager of Cornell's Civil Infrastructure Complex.

Wednesday's earthquake is proof we are vulnerable too, although we probably won't feel anything much stronger than that tremor. Still, teams of engineers from Princeton, Merrimac, Michigan and Cornell are preparing this machine meticulously to understand how much pressure it takes from a quake to start causing damage to key infrastructure buried underground, including things like natural gas lines, water and telecommunications. Those services often run through various styles of piping below ground.

"The focus here is primarily earthquakes but you could apply this to any natural disaster, floods," said Joe Chipalowsky of Cornell's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

It is believed a pipe, exposed on Clinton Street in Ithaca during some work, actually broke from the shaking in Wednesday's earthquake.

"Once you start moving things that have been sitting around for a long time, and have been corroding you may not need a very large earthquake to cause a leak," said Bond.

That's why, even in the northeast, underground infrastructure is starting to be built to meet earthquake standards, because the one thing no one can predict is when and where the next one will happen.

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