Earthquake Simulator
Umbria and the Marche in the stretches of the Apennine ridge have been particularly affected by seismic events over the last 20 years. After the earthquake of 1997, the electronics students of course ITEE, produced a vertical pendulum seismograph. With the success of the project, a second seismograph was realized and now we have two pendulum seismograph orientated them according to the two main directions NORD-SUD and EST-OVEST.
The 2009 Aquila events and the recent events of 2016 in the areas of the center of Italy that have also affected our homes have raised the interest in seismic events in general of the students. In our school, besides the electronics courses, we also have a course of CAT Construction Environment and Territory, for which it was natural to combine the knowledge of the two courses to realize a vibrating board driven by Arduino card according to oscillatory pulses derived from seismograms of real earthquakes . In this way we can apply a real-time converted digital oscillogram to our system and subject a seismic wave to a built-in staircase and leaning against the table top. These oscillations can be reduced or amplified and then tested for the collapse of the structure. It is also possible to apply pure oscillator signals between 0.5Hz and 5Hz to study the resonance behavior.