About the Seismic Design Competition

E-mail Doug at dalauder@yahoo.com if you'd like to help or want to know more.

Two members of the seismic team with their structure before flying to New Orleans to compete. Winter 2008

The seismic design competition is a significant part of the annual ASCE Regional Conference. It incorporates the practical application of seismic design principles through the construction of a wooden model, which is ultimately subjected to shake table testing for a performance-based evaluation of the design.

Background

UCSD is planning to build luxury housing for their scholars and faculty along the beach of La Jolla. To make the building more unique, different floors will be angled differently to give each room a unique view. Since the higher floors are generally more expensive, the client would like the floor area to be increased as you go up in height.

The Task

The task at hand is to design and build a scale model of a nine story building for the client. A scale model of the building will be tested with ground motion simulations for both service-level and design-level earthquakes.

Scoring

The scoring of each building model will be strictly a function of performance, weight, and feasibility. Performance is evaluated based on story drifts and accelerations (as measured by displacement and acceleration sensors) during shake table testing, where lower measurements are worth more. Weight is a good indicator of overall construction and material costs, and so lighter buildings will receive higher scores. Feasibility is more subjective, and is based on how realistic and appealing the building design is. For example, a structure with no windows may receive a very high performance score but a very low feasibility score.