What was it about?

This project which we completed in Term 4, 2022, was based on brainstorming, designing, and researching to create a ‘earthquake’ resistant house out of pasta sticks and blue tack. We were also only provided a $60 budget in which we had to purchase our desired materials. The pasta sticks were $1 for each stick and we ended up buying 33 sticks, and the blue tack was sold at $1 for a gram and we ended up buying $20 worth of blue tack to construct out building. This made things more challenging so we had to plan our attack and work as a group to choose the amount of materials and the design of our structure very carefully. We had to also follow the guidelines which each group had to follow with specified the parameters that our building had to stick to. They were to have the height of the structure above 60cm, the base be no bigger than 30x30cm, and to attach a 5×5 square piece of paper on top of the building without it falling off. Our structure measured at 62.5cm in height and was definitely under the limit for the size of our base.

Research we did to learn more on Earthquake-proof buildings:

The problem is how some buildings aren’t earthquake resistant meaning that the people in it and the building itself won’t be safe in the event that an actual earthquake would happen. An example of this is the Transamerica building is a pyramid shaped earthquake resistant building built with the possibility of future devastating shocks in mind. The building has concrete and steel foundations are designed to move with any earthquakes and reach far as 52 feet deep. This base allows for stability and the absorption of shock waves.

Earthquake-resistant building designs consider the following characteristics that influence their structural integrity:

– stiffness and strength

– regularity

– redundancy

– foundations

– load paths

Best buildings include shear walls, cross braces, diaphragms and moment-resisting frames.

Horizontal frames (diaphragms) distribute forces to the columns and walls

Moment-resisting frames keep joints rigid while allowing the structure to bend

The most notable earthquake resistant buildings/structures in real life include:

 – The Transamerica Pyramid: already withstood a magnitude of 6.9 Mw in 1989. It was constructed using the basic materials of concrete, glass and steel. The buildings concrete and steel foundations are designed to move with any earthquake, and they reach as far as 16 metres below ground!

(I wasn’t able to put a picture in!)

 – Taipei 101, which has tuned mass dampers really high in its building. They are larger pendulums placed high inside buildings, and they sway in response to any movement the building makes. Dozens of steel columns, as well as eight concrete-filled mega columns inside Taipei 101 create a sturdy frame, bolstered by outrigger trusses. Engineers reinforced its foundations by driving hundreds of piles driven deep into the bedrock below, similar to the Transamerica Pyramid structure.

In our build, we chose to not only replicate the designs of both the Transamerica Pyramid and the Taipei, we also added cross bracing inbetween the edges of the building to help support it’s stability. But in our demo-build we built a smaller version with all the pieces from the base meeting up at a point in the middle. We chose to do this, as we read about the theory of aiming all the incoming energy from the earthquake, to a single point high up in the building, reinforced with Seismic Dampeners, which dissipate the force from an earthquake. Pictured below is what we built prior to our real build:

After we had finished messing around ideating and creating different designs that we wanted, we got into producing our actual establishment which would eventually get graded. We actually had to assemble our building twice as our manufactured structure was demolished by possible passersby’s, when we entered the classroom to check on our building and continue construction. Yet, we traded back our broken spaghetti sticks to get the equal amount back, and began to make out structure. In the end we had a building which was very stable, survived 10 seconds during the P, S and Surface Waves and did not collapse or break afterwards. This are some photos of our final build:

Reflection:

Things that worked was that we were able to successfully build and test an earthquake-safe building without it breaking or crumbling. We were also able to manage our time for building, completing Stile and our E-Portfolio very efficiently, as we had a few delays and difficulties in building our building due to a few obstructions. Things I would do differently next time would be to try to have a longer time to brainstorm/ideate and then build some sample structures so we can have a design to agree on when we start building out final building. This would’ve helped us to have a solid foundation on what and how we were going to build our final earthquake-proof building.