This term I, along with my group, was challenged to design and build a model of a building that is capable of withstanding a major earthquake. Our model must be made completely out of spaghetti & blue tack, and within a budget of $60.
To have a successful building you must incorporate multiple earthquake proof features to minimize the damage done to the building. We needed to take into consideration, swaying and irregular movements when looking at what design would be best. We then need to look at our money and decide how we were going to spend it to maximize our resources.
Below are multiple design features researched and considered when making our first model.
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The design my group chose remained within budget with some wiggle room, whilst including a good building design to keep our building structurally stable. This build included triangles as they have a rigid structure to help support the building, we included cross bracing at major parts of our building to keep the vital parts of our building well supported. We also have most of our weight below half way so it won’t sway violently if a major earthquake occurred. The excess in the budget allows for it to either be saved for later use, or can be used to further improve on the building design, like adding a diaphragm at the base to help out in an earthquake. Therefore, this design is effective because it uses multiple earthquake safe features such as the cross bracing in two different places and the triangle at the top.
During testing, our building took heavy damage from the earthquake because of the few weak elements of support. As noted in my designs, the cross bracing allows the vibrations to travel, taking away the pressure from the corners. The cross bracing also means that the building has room to sway without falling apart or collapsing in on itself. Since the cross bracing was weak it broke apart, making the building unstable. A way to have avoided this was to double the noodles to add extra thickness.
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| Our design had multiple cross braces which allowed it to have room to sway, this meant it was harder for the earthquake to cause the building to collapse in on itself. | Our design was limited by the $60 budget which meant that I had to make decisions on what to keep allowing for certain design features had to be cut. |
| Our design was partially resistant to twisting because of the triangular pyramids which made up half of the model. This was effective because triangles are incredibly resistant to earthquakes because of their flexible structure. | Since this model was being built on top of ground level, I was not able to incorporate a diaphragm at the bottom. This is because diaphragms sit in the ground and distribute the forces in the building towards the columns at the bottom. Since there was no “bottom” the columns would have just been stilts for the building and made it less stable. |
| Our design had a small base which meant more money could go towards height and support. The 10×10 base allowed the building to be more compact and stable. | Our design relies heavily on the supports at the bottom and the pole running through the middle. The meant that when the pole originally snapped, my whole middle fell apart. As seen in the video above my support was weak and caused the building to break apart. |
As we were re-building our original design, we decided to add some extra support as we had the budget to and we decided it would help the structural integrity of the design. We decided to improve our design by adding internal cross bracing and a pillar in the middle of the building to connect it all up with, we connected it to cross section and stress points to help with the earthquake. This helped with stabilising the building, and on top of what we did, we could use our resources more effectively, making sure that the spaghetti and blue tack is well connected and used sparingly to maximise cost efficiency and reduce cost. We now had a better approach when building, as it took some time to fully construct the building the first time. First we built the bases and levels that could be pre built, then cut and measured other extra pieces of spaghetti. We then connected it all together using the whole group to hold and stick the pieces together and finally inspect the design to make sure all points are connected properly and there are no wonky or straight pieces. We also have realised that because of the pyramid the 25cm long pieces of spaghetti don’t go straight up, so we had to increase the length of the single top piece by about 4 cm. Creating a design that keeps the building neat and tidy will help when making adjustments and analysing our structure, this will help to further enhance how well our build performs. Our new design and build can be seen below.
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The implemented design changes, made our structure easier to build and more effective against earthquakes. We pre-prepared the pieces of spaghetti that we used so they were all the right length, and then built the structure up in a logical order to make it easier for ourselves, we first built the base of the structure and the pyramid and the piece at the top next, we proceeded to connect the two sections together while adding the cross bracing and the piece of spaghetti that ran through the centre. We made sure to use the blue tack wisely, covering all sides of the spaghetti, to ensure the pieces of spaghetti would remain unchanged and together in the event of an earthquake. We made sure that our structure was upright and unbending, this helped to keep a stronger stance for our structure to keep its integrity. We measured our design at the end to make sure it was within the required dimensions for our design challenge, it measured 10 cm by 10 cm at the base and 60 cm tall. We were able to analyse any issues as we made the structure neat and presentable, so it was easy to see possible downfalls of our design.
When we re-tested our structure, it was able to withstand the force of the artificial earthquake, it stood strong for 10 seconds at a catastrophic level of impact. It remained under budget only costing $55 as we used less blue tack while not compromising any of the structures connection points. We also noticed that it seemed to handle the impact of a simulated earthquake better than our previous design. Our new and improved design managed to better fill out the criteria for this task, as we were able to learn from our mistakes and take advantage of our prior designing and building phase of the process.
When reflecting on my groups teamwork, I think my strengths were doing the designs for my group and applying all our research to produce a building that would be capable of surviving an earthquake. During this engineering challenge I have learnt that effective communication is key to being successful. In my group me had many instances where we would be missing a member and would have to work around this. However, due to us planning ahead and informing each other of when we would be out we were able to still get our work done by optimising emails. I have also learnt that compromises need to be made when collaborating with others. Although at first my had conflicting ideas about what we wanted to create, we ultimately landed on a final agreed design of mine.
Overall this design task was challenging, but very rewarding in the end.