This week! Why a huge earthquake didn’t actually cause all that much devastation in Chile. How a not-so-tall building could be the end of a New Orleans neighborhood. And where brands killed Manhattan. Let’s take a look at What’s Ruining Our Cities.
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A week of calamity in landscapes reads! Did microbes cause the largest mass extinction in earth’s history? Why is California sinking? What did we learn from the biggest earthquake in America fifty years ago? And, closer to home, how dangerous should a playground be?
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Cities change: skyscrapers go up, row houses are torn down, neighborhoods gentrify, earthquakes destroy. Vintage photographs of cities can be fascinating in and of themselves, but the familiar unfamiliarity of these time-warped photographs are especially intriguing.
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It’s 2013. We’ve sent humans to the moon and can send trillions of gigabytes zipping around the world with the tap of finger, but still—still—we can’t predict earthquakes. But we do know this: Messing around with a fault—injecting things in it, taking things out of it—can induce earthquakes.
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Where tectonic plates meet, there’s trouble—we all know that from grade school—but you might not realise just how much movement they cause when earthquakes aren’t happening. This GIF shows in centimeter accuracy just how dramatic their effects can be.
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The massive Tohoku earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 was a reminder of the seriousness of seismic activity in Japan. It can, and does, strike anywhere in the country, and in fact, many experts predict that the next big earthquake may hit in the middle of the east coast of the country, near Tokyo.
So, as one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, it should be no surprise that truly remarkable technologies have been developed and put to use, here in Japan, to protect people and assets from the effects of earthquakes.
Earthquake Countermeasure Technology
There are roughly 3 primary technologies employed to combat the effects of earthquakes, with many variations and combinations of these:
Resistance – Engineering a structure to improve the ability of pillars and beams to withstand seismic force – basically architecting structures to absorb the force of an earthquake.
Damping – A number of methods are employed here such as rubber fittings or “viscous dampers” under structures to help absorb the force of shocks.
Seismic Isolation – Here, systems are put in place between buildings and their foundations, eliminating direct transmission of earthquake shocks to buildings by compensating for the movement of the ground below, passing on literally little to no movement to buildings or mounted objects above.
Seismic Isolation
I had the good fortune of seeing, first-hand, a demonstration of Seismic Isolation technology recently at the 23rd FINETECH JAPAN convention at Tokyo Big Sight and I was absolutely impressed.
The demonstration was given by THK Co., Ltd. of Nishi-Gotanda, Tokyo. On display was their Seismic Isolation Table (Model TSD). It was a platform of about 1.5 square meters with a server rack on top of it. The plate under which the table was sitting was moving to simulate the magnitude of the Great Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011, in the area of the greatest shaking. The Isolation Table was absorbing virtually all of the movement below, illustrated by a bottle of water mounted on the table – there was virtually no sloshing of the water inside.
This isolation table showed how this technology is put to use to protect important delicate machinery, robots, server racks, computer systems, etc. It is also used by wine collectors to protect their collections and by art museums to protect priceless artwork.
THK Seismic Isolation Table
THK’s technology is also put to use in Seismic Isolation foundations for new buildings. The idea is the same, on a large scale. Whole buildings are isolated from the shaking below on a series of seismic isolation mounts. This technology is optimal for structures up to 10 stories high, and is effective, in conjunction with Damping Systems, in protecting high-rise buildings.
THK’s Seismic Isolation for buildings
Seismic Isolation – How it works
THK’s core expertise is using ball bearings to develop “Linear Motion Systems” – converting a mechanical component’s linear motion into a “rolling” motion, which greatly improves the fluidity and smoothness of movement.
They have developed high-precision rolling tracks, using ball bearings, in various combinations, to allow for motion in any lateral direction as dictated by an earthquake. Vertical motion is also compensated for as the table or foundation provides a solid base to be anchored to as motion continues. Once movement has ceased, the systems have springs that are used to restore original positioning.
THK’s technology is used under new buildings built in Japan and other seismically active areas. Based on the company’s ball bearing and high precision movement technology, building positioning literally compensates for various lateral and vertical movement of the ground, dramatically dampening the perceived movement and shaking caused by earthquakes and reducing potential damage.
A couple high profile examples of this technology in use:
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Aichi Prefectural Office, Nagoya
Current Use and Future Potential
Earthquake countermeasure technology is in use in modern construction in Japan, and the rule-of-thumb is generally that the newer the building, the more sophisticated the employed technology.
There is no doubt that this technology made a difference during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Sendai, the largest city in Tohoku, and quite close to the center of the earthquake had relatively little structural damage among its office and residential buildings.
Resistance and Damping technology are by far the most employed earthquake countermeasure technologies, however Seismic Isolation is gaining ground quickly after having proved itself as particularly effective in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
Meanwhile, many areas of the world share the same fate as Japan, with disastrous earthquakes hitting recently in New Zealand, Italy, China, Chile, Iran, Indonesia – with more to come.
Seeing the amount of destruction around the world from earthquakes that are often of much lesser magnitude than those in Japan, I think that use of Japanese earthquake countermeasure technology could see an increase in the future around the world. This is an area of Japanese technology that should have a lot of future potential, but whether the market overseas can be properly developed remains to be seen.
Special thanks go to Toshio Saiki and Tomoko Kayaki of THK Co., Ltd. for assisting me with information and pictures as I assembled this story.
On April 20th 2013 China’s Sichuan Province was hit by an earthquake in Lushan County, Ya’an not too far from the epicentre of the last major earthquake in 2008. Donations were received by many organisations in hope that the funds would support the local population with disaster recovery and reconstruction.
Hao Qingchuan, Director of the One Foundation (Yi jijin) reached out to the tech community in China by welcoming donations in the internet currency Bitcoins (BTC). According to Hao Qingchuan’s sina weibo account the One Foundation created an address to which bitcoin holders could donate their Bitcoins. On the day following the quake they had already received 50 Bitcoins with a total market value of around US$6250 (based on April 21st prices).
Despite the small amount of money raised, it is the first time in China that any charity has offered to receive donations in Bitcoin and serves as an example to the growing interest in Bitcoin among Chinese netizens.
Recently China Central Television News programme Economy Half Hour (jingji banxiaoshi) produced a report on bitcoin in China which detailed the rising popularity of the digital currency. According to The Economic Observer Bitcoin enthusiasts in China refer to themselves as BTCers and Li Xiaolai who apparently holds the largest stockpile of bitcoins in the PRC describes Bitcoins as the “most stunning and most subversive social experiment in history.”
Quartz magazine believes that China is the next bull market for Bitcoin as it allows Chinese people to evade controls on foreign exchange and feel protected by its decentralised nature which the Chinese government cannot do much about. As the infographic above demonstrates, there are many things that Chinese BTCers could chose to buy with Bitcoin.
Akihabaranews visited the 23rd FINETECH JAPAN at Tokyo Big Sight yesterday and saw some really interesting technology.
We saw an amazing example of the technology being developed and built for protection against earthquake damage.
THK is a leading company in the development of this technology in Japan. Their technology is used under new buildings built in Japan and other seismically active areas. Based on the company’s ball bearing and high precision movement technology, building positioning literally compensates for various lateral and vertical movement of the ground, dramatically dampening the perceived movement and shaking caused by earthquakes and reducing potential damage.
THK has expanded this technology for use with important components like delicate machinery, robots, server racks, computer systems, etc. It is also being used in museums to protect priceless artwork and by wine collectors whose wine bottles are very vulnerable during large earthquakes.
The video below shows a server rack mounted on THK’s Seismic Isolation Table – Model TSD. The plate under which the table is sitting is moving to simulate the magnitude of the Great Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011, in the area of the greatest shaking. The Isolation Table is absorbing virtually all of the movement below.
It’s been more than two years since the tragic Eastern Japan tsunami and resulting Fukushima Prefecture nuclear plant crisis, but many of those who lived in affected areas still can’t return: witness the 21,000 residents of Namie, who had to evacuate and haven’t been back since. Thanks to a newly published Google Street View run, those former residents can once more see the town they had to leave. The 360-degree imagery shows Namie in the deserted state it faces today, with little recovery work done or possible. Google’s photos can’t accelerate the recovery process, but Mayor Tamotsu Baba views them as an incentive to eventually return — and a better way for the rest of the world to understand the tsunami’s long-term effects.
Via: Google Official Blog
Source: Memories for the Future
The 2nd anniversary of the catastrophic “Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami” that hit northern Japan is approaching (March 11). And I’d like to write about Earthquake kits which are very important in Japan, where massive earthquakes can hit at any time. When they do, like 2 years ago, there can be a loss of electricity, shortages of basic necessities such as clean water, exposure to the elements, etc.
A fun and convenient way for your kids to remember to grab their …
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