Designing a Quake-Resistant Building Starts at the Soil

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

Builders in developing countries are often not required to build strong buildings. So, when a disaster strikes, the damage is often widespread.

发展中国家的建筑工人通常并未要求建造非常坚固结实的建筑物。因此当灾难袭来，建筑常常是大面积损毁。

Yet Japan is one of the most developed countries in the world. Still, the March eleventh earthquake and tsunami 1 waves destroyed more than fourteen thousand buildings.

但日本是全球最发达国家之一。即便如此，3月11日的地震和海啸还是摧毁了超过1.4万幢建筑。

Brady Cox is an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Arkansas. He is also an earthquake expert with an organization called Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance, or GEER. The group studies major disasters.

布雷迪·考克斯（Brady Cox）是阿肯色大学土木工程助理教授。他也是极端地质灾害调查组织（Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance）的一位地震专家。该组织对重大灾害进行研究。

Professor Cox says Japan has one of the best building-code systems in the world.

考克斯教授说，日本拥有全球最好的房屋建筑规范体系（building-code systems）。

BRADY COX: "The problem is this earthquake was just a mammoth 2 earthquake, one of the, you know, top five earthquakes in recorded history. So anytime you have an earthquake that large, you are going to have damage."

考克斯：“问题是这次地震强度非常大，是有地震记录以来的全球第五大地震。所以不管什么时候遭遇这么强烈的地震，都会造成建筑损毁。”

The quake measured magnitude nine.

据测定这次地震的震级为9级。

BRADY COX: "One thing I think a lot of people don’t understand is that building codes are meant to prevent loss of life in earthquakes, that doesn’t mean that the buildings won’t -- or bridges for that matter, or anything -- won’t sustain significant damage."

考克斯：“很多人都没明白一点，建筑规范是为了避免在地震中伤亡，并不意味着建筑物、桥梁或其他东西在地震中不遭受重大损毁。”

Mr. Cox says Japan has invested a lot in seismic 3 research and design since a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Niigata in nineteen sixty-four. That same year a 9.2 quake shook the American state of Alaska.

考克斯先生说，自1964年新泻7.5级地震以来，日本在地震研究和设计方面投入巨大。那一年，美国阿拉斯加也经历了一次9.2级强震。

BRADY COX: "Those two earthquakes really opened up a lot of new research on something called soil liquefaction, in particular. And, you know, the Japanese, they have more earthquakes greater than magnitude six or seven than probably any other country in the world. I mean, they get hit a lot."

考克斯：“这两次地震引发了许多新研究，特别是基于“土壤液化”方面的研究。同时大家都知道，日本经历的超过6、7级的地震比全球任何国家都多。我的意思是，他们经常遭遇强震袭击。”

Soil liquefaction is the process by which the strength or stiffness of soil is weakened by an event like the shaking of an earthquake. The soil begins to move like liquid.

土壤液化是指在类似地震一类的事件中，土壤的强度或刚度减弱，土壤开始像液体般流动。

Professor Cox says the first step to designing an earthquake-resistant building is to study the soil.

考克斯教授称设计抗震建筑的第一步就是研究土壤。

BRADY COX: "Then the structural 4 engineers take that information and they use it to detail the building in terms of, is this going to be a steel structure? Is it going to be reinforced concrete? And then you get into all kinds of things in terms of the designs of the columns and the beams and the framing of the building and the connections. And how much steel do you put in?"

考克斯:“随后结构工程师利用这些信息详细罗列出建筑规划，例如应该是钢结构，还是钢筋混泥土结构？再然后，进入房屋全面设计，例如柱、梁、房屋框架和各类连接，以及使用多少钢筋？”

A team from Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance is planning a trip to Japan to examine the destruction. Mr. Cox and other members of GEER went to Haiti after the powerful earthquake last year, and continue to work with Haitian officials.

极端地质灾害调查组织的一个小组计划前往日本检查这次地震中建筑的损毁情况。去年海地强烈地震后，考克斯先生和其他成员赶赴海地，和当地官员一起工作。

BRADY COX: "A lot of the work that we’ve been doing has been focusing on the rebuilding effort and how to especially make sure that the rebuilding of schools and hospitals, and kind of critical facilities that you would need to respond to an emergency -- police and fire stations, government buildings -- that those things get rebuilt appropriately."

考克斯：“我们做的许多工作都聚焦于重建措施，以及如何确保学校、医院、警局、消防局、政府建筑一类应对紧急情况的关键设施的适当重建。