For Engineers, Lessons İn A Deadly Quake

Minnesota civil engineering experts like Carol Shield are paying close attention to the most powerful earthquake in Japan’s history.

Shield, a professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Civil Engineering, is among those involved in seismic testing and the never-ending study of earthquakes.

“We do a lot of earthquake testing here,” Shield said. “Even though we don’t have earthquakes in Minnesota, we learn a lot by looking at how structures would survive or behave” in those circumstances.

On Friday, a record-breaking, 8.9-magnitude offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami that has killed hundreds along a 1,300-mile coastline of Japan. The tsunami’s impact was felt far beyond Japan. The entire Pacific Ocean was put on alert, including coastal areas from South America to Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands, according to the Associated Press.

The death toll was expected to rise.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the U of M and other institutions are hoping to gain insight from the natural disaster to prevent future death and carnage.

The university is a partner in the National Science Foundation’s Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering program, which supports new technologies for “improving the behavior and response of structural systems subject to earthquake hazards.”

Much of the testing occurs within the university’s Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing (MAST) laboratory at 2525 Fourth St. S.E., a short walk from TCF Bank Stadium.

Researchers use the lab’s equipment to “twist, compress or stretch components of large structures such as buildings or bridges in order to study what happens to them during earthquakes and other extreme events,” according to the website (http://nees.umn.edu).

The MAST system is able to deliver “1.32 million pounds of vertical force, which is enough to support the full weight of a double-decker Airbus A380 Superjumbo Jet … fully occupied and fueled,” the website noted.

The system can test components as big as 20 feet long and 28.75 feet high. If the materials pass the machine-inflicted torture, they can be incorporated into real buildings.

On the private-sector side, Eden Prairie-based MTS Systems Corp., which has offices throughout the world, builds seismic simulators that test the ability of buildings, bridges and other structures to withstand quakes.

According to the company’s website (www.mts.com), civil engineering researchers “rely on MTS simulation technology and expertise to accurately replicate earthquake ground motions in laboratory settings.”

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