Strip the City San Francisco

Structure What are the modifications/ adaptations

TransAmerican Pyramid Thousands of pounds of concrete, clever

engineering, motor devices throughout the
building (excel motor monitors movement).
Elevator cabs have seismic switch runs along
with elevator shaft sense earthquake stops
and level off and opens doors (safety)

4 things they did

● Steel trust around the base

● the shape gives a low center of gravity

glass and concrete holds 48 floors,
steel
● Framing (steel Skelton)
● In the basement 30 thousand ton
concrete and steel anchor

Golden Gate Bridge ● Deep Foundation deep below the sea

bed, hits bedrock
● 150 tons of concrete bases
surrounding deep foundations
(bedrock)
● Concrete blocks reaching into rocks
on the bank
● 2 main cables holding the bridge to
act as an anchor
○ 136km of steel wire

Oakland Bay Bridge

● Steel cable around the bridge deck
along it to swing
● The Centre tower has 4 vertical steel
pillion making up each tower adds
flexibility
● Horizontal Beams crumble with
enough force takes force and disperse
helping from collapsing
● Split into 28 sections allowing it to
stretch
● Hollow beams inside holding sections
together and inside are piston-like
structures so when force hits it moves
separately, contract and expand
 Homes ● Long pilings in clusters deep enough
● Mission Bay (residential zone) to hit bedrock
● Concrete caps on each cluster
increasing SA
● Caps connected by concrete stretches
● Another layer of the concrete cap to
increase SA more

Tunnels / Subways ● A lot of hills

○ The solution was cable cars
■ Inside a concrete
tunnel steel cable
moves, cable attacks to
car
● Caldecott Tunnel ● Built-in segments lined with concrete
modules and coated in rubber to
move against each other allowing
flexibility so it doesn’t break when the
ground around it moves
● Fill one section with concrete
● Put rubber that allows flexibility

Water ● Sam metro Creek no enough water

- Crystal Springs Dam ● The dam was built along time ago
- Twin peaks reservoir (only for ● Concrete blocks, blocks can move to
firefighter) make the dam flexible
○ Segments
● Starts at twin peaks
● They built a reservoir
●
● Sank a pool deep into hill lined it with
reinforced concrete slabs
● Joint between slabs allowing the pool
to warp without cracking
● High-pressure pipes are hidden in
streets giving firefighter access to
water

Definitions
● Creepmeter - Use to tell how much tension is in fault
● Liquefaction - the force of an earthquake so powerful it transforms solid land to a
semi-liquid state
● Seismology - the study of earthquakes and related phenomena

Extra Notes
● Fires - the most damage and can kill many people
● Water Reservoir - Lines with reinforced concrete slabs, joints between allow it to warp
without cracking
● Gas can also kill people (cause after the earthquake)
● This device helps detect earthquakes by using sound
○ Microphone (series of clicks made by rocks moving, plates moving little by little)
○ Send electronic signal if there is a gap of time with no clicking shutting down
cities gas lines bridges etc
○