Future engineers pass the test of the seismic table
The Center for Construction Science and Technology (CCTC) of Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) conducted the real-time simulation of three earthquakes (The Magnitude 7.1 Center, Northridge Magnitude 6.7 and Kobe Magnitude 7.2) to verify its effects on two commercial model buildings, built with the basic structure similar to those built in the country , reduced to 1 scale to 72.
Outstanding students Crismerly Abreu Cepeda, Francisco Solano Hernandez, Mayreni E. Rosario Zorrilla, Julio Oscar Martinez Castro, Roberto Antonio Barreras Jiménez and Gabriel Rancier Castillo, built the two buildings with balsa wood and "silicola" (silicone and glue), according to the rules of the "Seismic Design Undergraduate Competition", which is held every year in the United States and is organized by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI).
The initiative was part of a special project after approving the subject "Structural Theory", taught by Eric Hernández, Ph.D. in Structural Engineering and specialist in Estructrónica (an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that integrates structural engineering and electronics).
"Both structures resisted all earthquakes, an acceleration of more than 1.5G (1.5 times gravity), which is very strong if we take into account that when an object falls in free fall, the acceleration is of 1G," explained Hernández, project advisor and director of the CCTC.
The first building, with "soft floor", like many Dominican commercial and residential buildings (which on the first level only contain parking and the entrance), "failed in the foundation when in the end it was subjected to a harmonic excitement of frequency and amplitude of wave chosen to achieve resonance, much stronger and longer than previous earthquakes, "said Diaz. This last earthquake lasted longer than Kobe's, which lasted 15 seconds.
The second building, reinforced with bracing, "failed where a well-engineered engineering structure had to fail to withstand earthquakes," on a beam, not in a column, explained Hernández.
Students, mostly from Civil Engineering, filled the García de la Concha Auditorium for about two hours, introduced by Professor José Manuel Díaz (M.Sc.), structural engineer, who explained the seismic risk of the Dominican Republic and the recommendations to reduce the seismic vulnerability of a structure.
The aim of the simulation was to determine how much the constructions could have resisted before earthquakes similar to those happened in the past and how much the same buildings reinforced with braces could withstand.
The Dean of Engineering, Carlos Cordero, invited the students to be motivated to reproduce the initiative in a contest for Intecnología 2011, the university's technology project fair.
The INTENSIVE Quanser II vibrating table, valued at more than US $ 25,000, is the only equipment of this type available at universities in the Caribbean region. It allows to reproduce real earthquakes in intensity and movement, whose data were documented by international earthquake monitoring networks. On this occasion, earthquakes occurred in the United States (California) and Japan.
The university uses the equipment for courses and graduates in Seismic Engineering, for teaching at the graduate level and special degree projects.