There's a whole lot of shakin' going on at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR).

UNR's seismic-simulation facility became the largest in the United States and second largest in the world this week with an expansion that included moving three new 27-ton shake table tops into the school's new Earthquake Engineering Laboratory.

“This facility is very exciting for us because it enables us to test things we haven't been able to test before,” said David Sanders, a civil engineering professor at UNR.

The shake table tops, called platens, are very large and strong surfaces onto which structures are attached and then shaken to determine their ability to withstand damage from earthquakes. Scientists use them to conduct simulations for governments and private industry to test new techniques to build safer bridges, highways and housing.

“It gives us more versatility and more flexibility and allows us to test larger structures and more different configurations of structures,” Sanders told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

“Now we not only can determine the capacity of different structures (to withstand an earthquake), we also can test the structures so buildings and bridges can stay functional after an earthquake,” he said.

Each one of the three tables can carry 50 tons of weight that can shake a structure forward and back just like a real earthquake, he said.

Envision one of Disney World's rides in a simulated world where you sit in a seat that whips you around.

“It's sort of like that, but with 50 tons of weight,” Sanders said.

Massive hydraulic jacks are used to move the tables and are controlled by computers to simulate the earthquakes.

Ian Buckle, a civil engineering professor and director of the seismic laboratory, says the $20M, three-story Earthquake Engineering Laboratory is “an earthquake engineer's dream.”

Access the full article and complementary video on the Reno Gazette-Journal's website here.

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