smash lab king c/o to save your house in earth quake

[dcman008]

Did any one else see smash lab tonight? they were trying to come up with new ways to stop buildings from falling down in an earth quakes. they put a house on rollers and used two 2.5 c/o to "dampen" the force of the quake. I'm no engineer but it would seem like it would only work if the force of the earth quake was perfectly in line with the shox.

[sickrick]

My guess is that to simplify the testing procedure they only shook the house in one direction.

I would guess in a real life application they would dampen it in all directions

[dcman008]

I don't see how they could dampen in all directions at once. Wouldn't standard shox interfear with each other in that app?


Edit: I'm dumb if you connected them all to a central location and made a star pattern with 6 or more you could dampen in most if not "All" directions at once.

\ /
-0-
/ \ kinda like that

[TyBo1001]

In Utah(and probably other places too) I know they have a few buildings that are on huge gel dampeners, they can move up to 18 inches in each direction, without hurting the building. There are also some buildings that float in Utah. The supports are actually in a well of water, that have some limited movement.

[dezertdoug]

This show lacks common sense. Has anybody else turned it off because they dont use any? Good ideas but I just dont like the way they present them. imho

[Tom_Willis]

The typical older home (concrete foundation with anchor bolts, wood framed one- or two-story, with plaster interior and stucco exterior) already has the best general design for resistance to seismic movement. The basic "box" structures used in wood framing allows minor flexing and twisting without collapsing, while the rigid plaster/stucco covering the walls has a high resistance to any flexing in the first place. All those post-WWII homes do real well in earthquakes already. The majority of homes that collapsed in the Northridge quake were older pre-WWI homes on brick foundations with unreinforced chimneys. The "modern" homes and other buildings that failed were sitting on top of a fault line, in which case it's gonna collapse no matter what. But if you mount a set of King shocks and bumpstops on each corner of your house and get the insurance company to lower the astronomical rates they charge for earthquake insurance you'd really be on to something.

I'd love to see a for sale ad like this:

"1800 square foot craftsman-style home, updated electric, plumbing. New a/c system. 3 bedrm, 2 bath, tile counter top, all new amenities including seismic retrofit with 4" King shocks and hydraulic bumpstops".

[Ron_Burgandy]

This show lacks common sense. Has anybody else turned it off because they dont use any? Good ideas but I just dont like the way they present them. imho

That chick on there is pretty hot, but is totally void of any usefull comments. I also had to turn the channel.

[Young&Fast]

It works because the coil overs will change the natural resonance frequency enough to prevent the house from tumbling down. I've seen the same thing at some antique car museum in L.A.

[DJ Jeffrey]

I am a huge Mythbusters fan, and when i saw this show about exploding stuff i thought it would be ok, it sounded like a spinoff of MB. In MB they describe a lot better and dont talk to the camera as if they were 5 like they do on smashlab. smash lab is ok i will still watch it but it is not as cool as MythBusters.

[therail]

I changed the channel too, the way they talk to the camera is annoying and sets off my gaydar.

[Scrapiron]

That show is a dumb rip off of Mythbusters. I have watched three of there shows and they all were all dumb. I'm done wasting time on this show.

[maxyedor]

This show lacks common sense. Has anybody else turned it off because they dont use any? Good ideas but I just dont like the way they present them. imho

I couldn't make it through an entire episode. I saw where they were "hurican proofing" houses with carbon fiber. Only problem is they used the creapest plywood they could find, and the house still stood up to like a catagory 3 hurricane, the carbon did help a lot, but so would building the house to code. Their other big issue was that if you throw a baseball through the window the 150mph winds will destroy the house, guess they never saw the news before a huricane, you know all the footage of people nailing 3/4" ply over their windows, don't supose that would have helped at all:rolleyes:

It's all sensless crap designed to be entertaining, but I've never met anybody who's actually entertained by it. Cool that they used Kings though, did the house have white fenders and a giant SRH decal on the back window?

[Mark Newhan]

I agree with every comment in this thread. I could'nt get through the first episode. Viva Mythbusters!