Earthquake-Proof House Uses Sliders and Mesh

Earthquake-Proof House Uses Sliders and Mesh
Nov-19-14
Stanford engineers have developed two unique architectural designs that could be inexpensively incorporated into home manufacturing to help reduce damage from earthquakes.

The team demonstrated their innovations—a unibody design and a foundation of sliding isolators—on a scaled-down test model. The unibody design is an aircraft term characterized by a holistic structure, in which all components add to the strength of the whole. In the case of the house, this including using glue to attach drywall, instead of screws, and embedding mesh into the stucco walls.

The home also sits upon a dozen sliders made of steel and plastic, which in turn sit atop bowl and plate-shaped sliders made of steel. These seismic isolators isolate the house from the vibrations of the earthquake, and allow it to slide instead of shaking apart.



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[GIZMAG.COM]
[NEWS.STANFORD.EDU]
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