Bomb-resistant

Noah Berger photo

06 June 2001 | Structural engineering graduate students Erik Madsen and Brant Jones inspect a concrete floor following a June 4 test in Davis Hall of a system to make buildings bomb resistant. In a demonstration of the new mechanism — designed to prevent the kind of catastrophic collapse seen in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building — a team led by Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Hassan Astaneh removed a critical support column and gradually applied 190,000 pounds of force to a replica of a federal courthouse to be built in Seattle. Connector bolts failed, tons of concrete and steel groaned ominously, and the massive floor sank several feet as pressure was applied — but never collapsed.
The new system — one of several blast-resistant designs under study — relies on steel cables, embedded in the floor, to bear the weight of the floor if a support column is knocked out. The research is funded by the General Services Administration in an effort prevent loss of life in the event of future attacks on federal buildings.