Dear friends,

On Friday, March 27, 2009, Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building (PAKSBAB) conducted successful shake table tests of a full-scale 14’ x 14’ straw bale house at the University of Nevada, Reno.  The input motion was the Canoga Park Topanga Canyon record of the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake, Mw 6.7.  The house was subjected to increasing levels of seismic shaking, beginning at 25% of the recorded ground acceleration and increasing at 25% increments until failure.  I'm pleased to report that the house performed exceptionally well and survived 0.82g (0.82 times the acceleration of gravity), twice the acceleration of the Canoga Park record.  The Geological Survey of Pakistan estimates the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Mw 7.6, to have had peak ground accelerations in the range of 0.3 to 0.6g. 

I am extremely grateful to EERI, NEES and UNR for their generous support, and to all the hardworking volunteers who dedicated countless hours to this project.

To view the abstract and download a handout please go to http://nees.unr.edu/projects/straw_bale_house.html.   See http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/42035847.html# for publicity we’ve received regarding the test.  For more information about PAKSBAB please visit www.paksbab.org.

More videos and test report to come…

Kind regards,

Darcey

Darcey Donovan, P.E., C.E.O.

Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building (PAKSBAB)

P.O. Box 1083
Truckee, CA 96160 USA
(530) 902-5516 cell
(530) 582-4965 fax

0344-9455664 PAK

ecoengineering@...

www.paksbab.org