Building Vibration

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Building Vibration

When there is an earthquake a building vibrates due to the seismic forces. In this experiment you can see how this occurs and how this differs in different size of building.

Items needed: Jell-O in a 8" x 8" pan and follow directions for Jiggler recipe on the box.

Cut one row of the Jell-O into 2 inch x 2 inch squares. Cut another row into 3 inch x 3 inch squares. Stack the squares on a paper plate.

How does the height affect the structure?

What happens when you shake the plate?

A tall slender Jell-O structure will have larger vibrations than a short fat structures. Engineers have to take this into consideration when they design a building. They used sophisticated Computer Aided design to model a building. The earthquake data is fed into the computer and the shaking of the building can be stimulated. Based on such an analysis the building is designed.

Credit: American Council of Consulting Engineers of Colorado