UC San Diego has hosted the tallest full-scale seismic building test on an earthquake simulator. The LEVER Architecture-designed 10-story building, made of cross-laminated timber, was tested on what the organizers say is the world’s largest outdoor shake table.

Tests on the structure began in late April, where a shake table simulated earthquake motions recorded during prior earthquakes covering a range of magnitude 4 to magnitude 8 on the Richter scale. The range also included various iterations of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge Earthquake which struck Los Angeles in 1994.

The shake table used in the test has been designed to “reproduce the full 3D ground motions that occur during earthquakes” including a movement of up to six degrees of freedom. Atop the table is what the team has dubbed the Tallwood building: A 116-foot-tall cross-laminated timber structure roughly one-fifth the height of the National Monument in Washington D.C.

The test will seek to understand the performance of high-rise mass timber buildings in earthquake scenarios at a time when the structural system is gaining traction among U.S. building codes. To facilitate the test, the team designed a mass timber rocking wall lateral system suitable for earthquake zones, which “consists of a solid wood wall panel anchored to the ground using steel cables or rods with large tension forces in them,” according to principal investigator Shiling Pei.

“When exposed to lateral forces, the wood wall panels will rock back and forth — which reduces earthquake impacts — and then the steel rods will pull the building back to plumb once the earthquake passes,” Pei added.

In addition to monitoring the building’s primary structure, the test will also analyze the performance of nonstructural components. The building, therefore, includes four exterior façade assemblies, several interior walls, and a 10-story stair tower.

“These assemblies have been designed with a variety of new and innovative details that are intended to accommodate the floor-to-floor movement without damage,” project co-investigator Keri Ryan said. “Many of these details have never been tested in a rigorous building setting.”

News of the test comes weeks after Los Angeles published a list of 33 county-owned structures deemed to be most at risk in an earthquake. Also in March, it was reported that the city had updated its building codes in the wake of the deadly earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria.