Simulating Magnitude 8 Earthquakes In The Lab With A Giant Flywheel
Aseismic Creep in California Fault creep has displaced this Fremont, Calif., curb since its construction about 15 years previous to when this photo was taken. WikipediaMore realistic earthquake simulations could lead to better predictions of massive earthquake behavior. Understanding how major earthquakes happen is one of the biggest challenges in quake science - tremors of different sizes have very different characteristics, let alone outcomes. Lab simulations of earthquakes stick rock surfaces together and push on them with different pressures to a breaking point, causing them to slip against each other. But this doesn't fully simulate the physics of a huge and damaging earthquake, because the rupturing is too weak by five or six orders of magnitude. A new experimental earthquake setup offers a better fake-quake solution. Scientists in California and Oklahoma built a rotary earthquake simulator that spins and stores energy inside a 500-pound flywheel. Its 100 HP three-phase electric motor...