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BSSC Annual Meeting Participants Visit the University of California at San Diego's Test Laboratories and Shake Table On Friday, June 20, 2003, BSSC Annual Meeting attendees who chose to participate in the field trip boarded a bus headed for the University of California's San Diego (UCSD) campus. The campus is located in La Jolla, approximately 13 miles north of San Diego, CA. The visitors were met by Dr. Chia-Ming Uang, Professor of Structural Engineering who conducted a tour of the facilities at the Charles Lee Powell Structural Research Laboratories for full-scale testing of structures. The laboratories have the test area dimensions, load capacities, state-of-the-art computer controlled servo-hydraulics, and data acquisition systems required to conduct this type of large-scale testing. The tour started with
a presentation by Dr. Yael "Lelli" Van Den Einde, Project Scientist
and Laurance "Larry" T. Berman, Principal Development Engineer
and Operations Manager. The various laboratories on campus were described
and participants were given a virtual tour of the of the Large
High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST) being constructed as
part of the National Science Foundation's George E. Brown, Jr. Network
for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) collaboratory. The facility
will be able to conduct large-scale soil and blast testing and will have
the country's largest outdoor shake table. By clicking on the link above
you can access the LHPOST site and a link there will take you to a live
web cam (which does not work all the time) where you can see how the construction
progresses. The group donned hard-hats and visited the following laboratories: |
| Structural
Components and Advanced
Composites Laboratories The laboratories were shown and information regarding current projects related to the group by Larry Berman. Statistics about the lab can be obtained by clicking on the link above. |
| Caltrans
Seismic Response Modification Device (SRMD) Dr. Gianmario Benzoni, Project Manager of the test facility, gave a brief overview of the shake-table and its capabilities. There was no actual testing going on at the time, but Dr. Benzoni activated the table so the group could see how the shake-table moves in an actual test. The group was shown a video of an actual test that had been performed. |
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Structural
Systems Laboratory
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