Earthquake protection

Earthquake Protection for Machinery, Buildings and Equipment

With the Newcastle earthquake and the more recent Christchurch event in mind, Australian and New Zealand architects and engineers are taking earthquake protection of infrastructure and buildings very seriously. Visotech can help with very the design and supply of specific and customised earthquake protection systems.

Numerous countries have to live with the constant threat of earthquakes. Not only are machines, technical equipment, buildings in danger of being damaged or destroyed, but life-essential facilities and human life itself are also at risk. GERB has taken up the challenge of providing solutions that protect against such natural disasters. Engineering, project development, suitable devices and all necessary support can be supplied from a single source.

High Voltage Reactors with Earthquake Protection – California, USA

Benefit from Experience of Many Decades

GERB has been supplying earthquake-proof, visco-elastic devices for heavy machinery of various kinds for decades. For example, appropriately designed elastic supports have been protecting turbo generators in both conventional and nuclear power plants in many countries against damage from earthquakes. These ideas have been developed consequently, and nowadays efficient seismic protection strategies can be provided for machinery, technical equipment, buildings and many other kinds of structures. Spring elements and dampers are effective against ground settlements, vibrations and structure borne noise and can successfully be used for earthquake protection purposes. During many years, it has been proven that machines, equipment and buildings with such devices have survived powerful earthquakes in many seismically prone areas of the world.

Protecting Highly-Sensitive Facilities

GERB’s fields of activities include providing solutions for reliable protection against earthquakes for conventional, nuclear and petrochemical facilities as well as high-voltage installations such as substation equipment and other fields. Natural earthquakes – with combined horizontal and vertical excitation – frequently produce very high stress and strain levels in structures as well as unacceptable accelerations. Systems comprising helical spring elements and Viscodampers® have proven to be particularly suitable against these effects.