Alaska earthquakes - July 2015
A magnitude 6.46 earthquake tonight at 6:35 p.m. Alaska time, felt around Anchorage. Facebook is lit up about the length and severity of the shaking. There were 7 aftershocks within an hour. Some f...
Forum Discussion
"....Perhaps the building codes in Alaska have improved, ..."
They actually have improved quite a bit. All buildings in a regulated area in Alaska are now built to seismic zone standards (Fairbanks may be a lower standard than Los Anchorage, can't recall for sure) and there are many mundane improvements as part of that:
- More "flex joints" built into concrete buildings;
- More analysis on structural steel design
- (Near and dear to my heart as I spent years putting these in as a younger fella) All piping now has sway braces so that it stays in place during a quake
One of the more innovative ideas was used on a major building in Anchorage (one of the last ones that I'm familiar with) from the mid-90's: that building rests on a 24" (IIRC) layer of sand and has a similar sized zone on the sides...the intent being that the sand acts as a "lube plate" between the moving earth and the building structure. We'll see how it works on the next 8 - 9+ quake.
They actually have improved quite a bit. All buildings in a regulated area in Alaska are now built to seismic zone standards (Fairbanks may be a lower standard than Los Anchorage, can't recall for sure) and there are many mundane improvements as part of that:
- More "flex joints" built into concrete buildings;
- More analysis on structural steel design
- (Near and dear to my heart as I spent years putting these in as a younger fella) All piping now has sway braces so that it stays in place during a quake
One of the more innovative ideas was used on a major building in Anchorage (one of the last ones that I'm familiar with) from the mid-90's: that building rests on a 24" (IIRC) layer of sand and has a similar sized zone on the sides...the intent being that the sand acts as a "lube plate" between the moving earth and the building structure. We'll see how it works on the next 8 - 9+ quake.
