Shake, Rattle, Roll

Earthquake Laboratory
Background: The USGS has reported outstanding statistics on the occurrence of earthquakes throughout the world. They state that each year there are about 7 million earthquakes that occur. While many of these of earthquakes occur in remote areas of the world or are not strong enough to be felt, in 2010 there were a total of 21,546 earthquakes worldwide with 2,156 that had a magnitude of 5.0-9.9 (these could be felt). With so many earthquakes that occur, its a wonder society is able to survive these! Thanks to scientists who studied the effect earthquakes have on buildings, structures, bridges, etc., engineers and architects can design and build features that are able to withstand the impact of most earthquakes. Your Task: You have recently been hired as an architect for a new company, Quake. They have assigned you the task of designing and constructing new headquarters for their company in three different areas. Being familiar with the area, you know that the first building is being constructed near the North American Boundary and Juan de Fuca boundary so it must be able to withstand high impact. The second building is being constructed about 30 miles away on a hillside. Finally, the third Quake building you must construct will be in an area where you know the surface, ground, is very unstable and could most likely move if an earthquake struck. Your boss tells you that she wants all of the buildings to be about 12 inches tall and that due to tight finances you may only use the materials provided by the company. You have 15 minutes to construct a building that will withstand the effects of an earthquake at each location. Good luck!

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Quake Building One
Your Mission:

This Quake building is being constructed in a high impact location. Using the materials provided, design a structure that is at least 12 inches high and will remain standing when a heavy book is dropped next to building. While you are constructing your building be sure to fill out the observation chart found in the back of this packet. After you have constructed your building follow the guidelines below to test your structure.

The Test:

1. Tape a piece of graph paper to the floor 2. Put your building on the paper. DO NOT TAPE YOUR BUILDING TO THE PAPER. 3. Trace the foundation of your building on the paper. 4. Using a few yard sticks, measure 2 yards above the ground. 5. Drop a heavy book from this height next to your structure (make sure you do not drop the book on top of your building) 6. Using a different color, trace the new location of the foundation of your building. 7. Measure the distance the foundation moved, if it moved at all.

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Quake Building Two
Your Mission:

This Quake building is being constructed in on a hillside. Using the materials provided, design a structure on a slanted surface that is at least 12 inches high and will not slide down the hill when the side of the hill is impacted. It is important to build your structure on graph paper making sure that the surface is slanted so one side of the building is higher than the other. While you are constructing your building be sure to fill out the observation chart found in the back of this packet. After you have constructed your building follow the guidelines below to test your structure.

The Test:

1. Build your structure on the graph paper. DO NOT TAPE YOUR BUILDING TO THE PAPER. 2. Trace the foundation of your building on the paper. 3. Using a few yard sticks, measure 12 inches above the uphill wall. 4. Drop a light weight (box of staples, box of crayons, pack of cards) from this height uphill of your structure. 5. Using a different color, trace the new location of the foundation of your building. 6. Measure the distance the foundation moved, if it moved at all.

Shake, Rattle, Roll

Quake Building Three
Your Mission:

This Quake building is being constructed in on an unstable surface. Using the materials provided, design a structure on an unstable surface that is at least 12 inches high and will not fall down when surface (ground) moves beneath. While you are constructing your building be sure to fill out the observation chart found in the back of this packet. After you have constructed your building follow the guidelines below to test your structure.

The Test:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Fill the top of a shoe box with marbles (enough so they can still roll out). Place the building on top of the marbles. Obtain a stopwatch. Slowly slide the box back and forth about 2 inches in either direction (about 1 shake every 5 seconds) 5. Gradually increase the speed of the shake until you shake 1 time every second. 6. Continue recording results even if the building moves. 7. When the building falls over, stop shaking, and record the speed at which the building fell.

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Teachers Guide

Building
Building 1: High Impact

Structural Characteristics

How building withstood testing

Why the building behaved that way

Building 2: Hillside Building 3: Unstable surface

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Teachers Guide
Results of Building 1:
A relatively short, wide building will be more stable than a tall, narrow building. Another design feature that will help the building's stability is to concentrate most of its mass near the bottom, since a top-heavy building will tend to be unstable. Since many of the buildings in earthquakeprone cities are skyscrapers, most of them are narrower at the top than the bottom. An extreme example of this is the pyramid-shaped Transamerica building in San Francisco, California.

Results of Building 2:
The building will be most stable if it is given a wide foundation, such as a fan of paper to skirt its bottom to provide more surface area against the side of the hill. Another strategy would be to brace the building by attaching straws to the downhill wall that angle down to the hillside surface. Again, as with the High Impact challenge, a relatively wide building will be more stable than a relatively tall, narrow building.

Results of Building 3:
This building will be stabilized by focusing most of its mass near the bottom. A pyramid shape would be a very clever idea, and is unlikely to tip over even when it is being shaken quite rapidly. In some communities where the ground beneath buildings is quite soft, such as the Marina district of San Francisco, California, which was badly damaged in 1989, the buildings were literally shaken apart because the soft ground magnified the intensity of the earthquake. Explain that some new buildings have actually been constructed on rubber mountings that absorb the shock waves.

Adapted from: PBS.org Nova Teachers