Seismic Test

Click here to watch a video of a shake table test of typical Japanese post and beam houses. The test was done Nov. 21, 2005 at the recently completed US$500 million lab near Tokyo called E-defense. The test facility has a 15m x 12m 3-dimensional shake table capable of supporting a 1200 ton structure.

The two houses in the video are identical 30 year old post and beam homes (approx. 5.5m x 5.5m footprint) that were moved into the lab. One house was reinforced for seismic loads (plywood sheathing and steel connectors) and the other was not. The ground motion replicated the Kobe earthquake, the PGA of which was 0.65g.