[Healeys] Earthquakes and Lifts

Alan Seigrist healey.nut at gmail.com
Thu Dec 17 07:18:50 MST 2009


Bill -

I'm originally an engineer from Berzerkeley where we study these
things, and spent 6 years working for Bechtel.

There is two ways to do this - keep it loose or anchor it down with guy wires.

You don't want to just bolt the posts to the floor - with up to two
tons six foot in the air that's potentially enough weight to break
most welds with lots of shaking - in some ways if you just left it on
the wheels it'd probably just roll around rather than topple over if
you bolted 'er down.

There are actually many buidings in Tokyo that have floating/rolling
foundations for this very reason - loose at ground level is great for
stopping things from toppling over.

The best thing to do, however, is to get guy wires and turnbuckles and
connect them to the top of all four posts then bolt the other end of
the wire to the floor, preferably with the wire at a 45 deg angle to
level (but any angle past ~ 70 deg to level isn't as good) .  This is
the best protection to keep the lot from falling over and how many old
masonry buldings are shored up to withstand quakes.  The guy wires are
good because you can easily loosen them and move the lift around if
necessary.

Alan

On 12/17/09, wilkmanracing at aol.com <wilkmanracing at aol.com> wrote:
> I live in Southern California, AKA earthquake country.  I have a four post
> lift that, like most four post lifts, does not have to be bolted down.  One
> concern I have, however, is what happens to a car on the lift and a car
> below
> the lift in the case of an earthquake.  Seems to me that a moderately strong
> earthquake could topple a lift leaving both the top and bottom cars in a bad
> state.  But, just bolting a lift down would not seem to be enough.  Unless
> the
> bolts extended well into a deep footing, I would think a moderately strong
> earthquake would pull the bolts out of the ground.  Does anyone have any
> ideas
> as to how to earthquake-proof a lift?
>
> Bill Wilkman
> BT7
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-- 
Sent from my mobile device

Alan

'52 A90
'53 BN1
'59 Jag Mk IX
'64 BJ8


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