Unit 10b Book

Unit 10a established the context of earthquake simulations, which are especially important in seismically active countries, such as Japan. As already explained, there are various ways to protect buildings from collapsing. Unit 10a focused on seismic dampers fitted inside the walls of buildings to absorb some of the kinetic energy generated during earthquakes. Unit 10b, however, is going to deal with another anti-seismic system; namely a composite consisting of concrete inside an outer skin of polymer. Specialists believed that this polymer might have potential to create a ductile, non-brittle material that would not collapse during an earthquake, even if the concrete inside was fractured. They expected the polymer to bind the structure together. In order to see if this composite might be an ideal material for the next generation of houses, especially for their load-bearing walls, a special test was performed. First, a computer model based on the Kobe earthquake was prepared, which showed that a 7.3 magnitude earthquake produces a maximum inter-storey drift* at the 5th storey of 5.18 mm. In the test, therefore, the walls were pushed by jacks to the maximum distance of 5.18 mm. Then the walls were inspected to see if they showed signs of damage.

If you read the sections of the text on p. 76 in the coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Coursebook. Pearson Longman), you will see that a test report gives much more information than just the reason for the test and the description of its procedure, namely the introduction, objective, experimental setup, procedure, results, conclusion(s), plans for further testing, and, if needed, an appendix (or, if there is more than one, appendices).  In some reports, an appendix is called an “annex”. Before reading about the report in detail, look at the figures in Task 1 on the same page, so that you have an idea what the two experimental walls looked like. Then, while reading the report, complete this task.

* inter-storey drift = relative horizontal displacement between two adjacent floors (as explained in Bingham, C., Wright, L. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Teacher´s Book. Pearson Longman, p. 97.)