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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

CNET has a story giving advance notice on How to watch a major earthquake test shake a six-story building [cnet.com]:

A six-story building has been constructed on an outdoor shake table at UCSD [ucsd.edu] with support from federal and state government agencies as well as a number of building industry sponsors. The main sponsor is SWS Panel and Truss [swspanelinc.com], builders of the engineered Mid-Rise Cold-Formed Steel Building Wall Systems [ucsd.edu] used to create the test building.

The test will begin around noon PT and will involving shaking the heck out of the structure and also seeing how it holds up to fire. A drone flying inside the building will provide a video feed of what the shaking looks like from the interior. You can also watch the test via this live web video feed [click2stream.com].

There's an old saying, "Scientists have frequently found that two months in the lab can save two hours in the library." In this case, though, I am happy to see that empirical testing is being performed to get actual data about what happens under controlled circumstances. Hopefully, the data gathered can lead to the development of cost-effective buildings that are better able to survive earthquakes. Oh, and if they are open to ideas, I'd suggest they consider playing this music [youtube.com] over loudspeakers while conducting the test.

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