Construction engineers must plan for the worst-case scenario if they want their buildings to survive. In heavy earthquake areas, the worst case isn’t hard to imagine. How do modern designers keep their structures from tumbling down?Base isolation is the most popular option. It refers to “a collection of structural elements which should substantially decouple a superstructure from its substructure resting on a shaking ground thus protecting a building or non-building structure’s integrity” (Wikipedia). There are other vibration control technologies, but base isolation is the most common, and has even been retroactively applied to U.S. monuments like San Francisco City Hall and Salt Lake City and County Building. Read the rest of this entry »