How federally funded research helps save lives during an earthquake

Some of the most earthquake-prone parts of the United States are also the most populated; on average, southern California experiences around 10,000 earthquakes each year. While only several hundred of those reach a greater magnitude than 3.0, it is nevertheless a testament to advances in structural engineering that large cities can flourish along fault lines. Without researchers imagining, testing, and ultimately implementing safer, more structurally sound methods and materials for constructing buildings, earthquakes in the U.S. would be much more costly and disastrous.

One of those researchers is Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University and founding director of the Ralph S. O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute. With consistent federal financial support from the National Science Foundation, Schafer's work has improved building codes and led to the development of more resilient and cost-effective building solutions. He developed the Direct Strength Method of design, an internationally approved method for predicting the strength of cold-formed steel building components. He has also led the first full-scale seismic tests—which involve simulating earthquakes to see how a building reacts—on a cold-formed steel framed building.

In light of recent cuts to NSF's workforce, Schafer sat down to discuss the agency's vital role in his own research and the safety of America's buildings and homes.

How has federal funding, particularly from the National Science Foundation, supported your work?

I've had a lot of NSF support, and it has allowed me to take fundamental knowledge and convert it into practical knowledge that engineers can use to design better buildings. It has also allowed me to conduct experiments at a large enough scale to change the way we think about how we make buildings.

I've had the privilege of testing a full-scale, two-story building several years ago, and I am currently about to test a 10-story building at the outdoor testing facility in San Diego, which is an NSF site, [and this project is a multi-university-industry collaborative] funded by the NSF. It takes a lot of NSF support to make [these tests] happen.

Image caption: Master's candidate Sophrenia David and Ben Schafer in the lab

Image credit: Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University

Can you explain how these earthquake tests work?

I get funded by the NSF, and we come up with ideas to make buildings safer from earthquakes. Then we work with design engineers and manufacturers to turn those ideas into reality. To complete the final step, we build full-scale buildings and put them on machines, which are located at shared NSF sites, that allow you to simulate an earthquake. We can "replay" an earthquake from history or simulate a new earthquake, measuring and monitoring the building response to make sure it's what we expected, but also so we can provide improved rules for the engineers that will design buildings [using our methods]. So throughout the whole cycle, the federal government is hugely involved. The innovation is enabled by the NSF, which goes into making better and more resilient buildings in this country.

How has this kind of research shaped the nation's building codes or led to changes that affect everyday people?

I work with other engineers to make model standards that follow an American National Standards Institute process. These standards are then adopted by building codes to provide the rules that engineers can use. There are lines in the building code which give guidance to engineers on how to design a particular part of a building that come directly from work that was funded by NSF. I spend an enormous amount of my time on the actual building code writing process.

There are also specific systems with specific details (e.g. lightweight steel shear walls and specially detailed floor and roof diaphragm systems) that engineers use that are now allowed, which allow us to have lighter, safer, more reliable, more resilient buildings for earthquakes. The federal government is deeply involved in helping make sure that the nation's buildings are not just safe but better as we go forward.

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Without research—and the federal support that makes it possible—scientific breakthroughs suffer, and the lifesaving treatments of tomorrow are at risk.

The other thing maybe that's not so obvious is that NSF doesn't work independently. I've had several NSF projects that were direct collaborations with industry. That work wasn't just a theoretical endeavor, but something that went into the world at the same time that the research was done. The NSF's impact on engineering companies and industry is enormous. We're not just talking about fundamental "why" questions (which are important too!) but some people might have difficulty relating to. We're also talking about important day-to-day advances in the world we live in that are directly tied to NSF research.

Could you explain why building codes matter and what our apartments or homes might be like without them?

Let's say a hurricane hits Mississippi and Alabama. On the news, you'll see all these buildings that have damage, but less attention will be paid to why it is that we're not hearing anything about [damage] in this part of Mississippi, but we're hearing about it in this part of Alabama. We all just think, oh, I guess the storm was worse [in Alabama]. But in many cases, the building codes are different in each state. Local jurisdictions are allowed to adopt certain provisions based on national model codes, and you can absolutely see the difference in performance during earthquakes, wind, and fire in structures that are designed to the latest model provisions. These codes provide a pathway for engineers to give the public not just safer buildings, but less costly buildings that can still give [an optimal] performance.