Is about a third the cost of other seismic isolation systems
When you live in a country as seismically active as Japan, thinking about earthquakes (and tsumanis) probably occupies a good deal of your time. Inventor Shoichi Sakamoto took it a step further. He decided to do something about it and invented a technology, remarkably simple in concept, to protect homes from the devastating shaking – an airlift system capable of automatically raising and isolating the whole house until the temblor stops.
Already deployed in nearly 90 sites across Japan, the system functions in a straightforward manner: the house is separated from its foundation by an expandable, sliding air chamber. The instant a quake is detected (within .5 – 1 second), air from a storage tank fills the chamber and lifts the entire structure up to 1.18 inch (3 cm) and keeps it there until a sensor detects the shaking has stopped. Emergency batteries are provided to ensure the system stays functional in the likely event of power-loss.
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