[GSBN] PAKSBAB Straw Bale House Shake Table Tests - Friday, March 27, 2009 - A Great Success!

[Darcey Donovan]

Dear GSBN friends,

 

I'm pleased to report that our straw bale house performed exceptionally well
during the shake table tests at the University of Nevada, Reno, last Friday.
The input motion was the Canoga Park Topanga Canyon record of the 1994
Northridge, California earthquake, Mw 6.7.  The house was subjected to
increasing levels of seismic shaking, beginning at 25% of the recorded
ground acceleration and increasing at 25% increments until failure.  The
house survived 0.82g (0.82 times the acceleration of gravity), twice the
acceleration of the Canoga Park record.  The Geological Survey of Pakistan
estimates the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Mw 7.6, to have had peak ground
accelerations in the range of 0.3 to 0.6g.  

 

I am extremely grateful to EERI, NEES and UNR for their generous support,
and to all the hardworking volunteers who dedicated countless hours to this
project.

 

To view the abstract and download a handout please go to
http://nees.unr.edu/projects/straw_bale_house.html.   See
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/42035847.html#
<http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/42035847.html>  for publicity we've
received regarding the test.  For more information about PAKSBAB please
visit www.paksbab.org <http://www.paksbab.org/> .

 

More videos and test report to come.

 

Kind regards,

 

Darcey

 


Darcey Donovan, P.E., C.E.O.

Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building (PAKSBAB)

P.O. Box 1083
Truckee, CA 96160 USA
(530) 902-5516 cell
(530) 582-4965 fax

0344-9455664 PAK

 <mailto:ecoengr at sbcglobal.net> ecoengineering at gmail.com

 <http://www.paksbab.org/> www.paksbab.org

 

 

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