Since 1947, when the original Baldwin was built and freighted by train to campus, it has been the cornerstone of the civil engineering department; in fact, More Hall was built around it.

The "Baldwin" is a massive piece of machinery that applies large forces on individual components of structures, such as the truss of a bridge, support beam of a building or pillar of a pier, in order to study how components behave under different types of strain.

While it is a cornerstone of the department, the Baldwin is also a major local Puget Sound resource and a major contributor to the international civil engineering community.

This week, the UW's Structural Research Laboratory will be using the Baldwin for tests to better prepare the Port of Seattle for a large earthquake.

"Ports represent billions of dollars each year to our local economy, yet these facilities are very susceptible to earthquake damage," Charles Roeder, a professor of civil engineering said.

Roeder visited Kobe, Japan in 1995 to study the aftermath of an earthquake that left the city in ruins. The Great Hanshin Earthquake claimed more than 4,000 lives, cost Japan more than $200 billion in repairs and destroyed the city's thriving port.

This disaster gave Roeder important insight about how structures can be enhanced to withstand this kind of stress.

The lab is conducting ongoing research regarding how to build safer bridges and piers and build them faster.

"[Research projects] are not something that you immediately see in construction, but result in long-term changes," Roeder said.

In the Seattle area, a number of bridges are due for repair or replacement in the next several years, including the Evergreen Point Bridge, the 520 bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The Baldwin has the capacity to deliver 2.4 million pounds of pressure on its hapless test subjects, and is one of the few such devices in the nation that can bring components to failure.

Roeder said the ability to do this is very important because these behaviors are difficult to model and predict without considerable experimental study.

"The goal is to work with practicing engineers to help improve their design practice ... to impact the profession," said Dawn Lehman, an assistant professor and director of the structural research lab. "We're worried about life safety."

This August, the National Science Foundation awarded the structural research laboratory a $577,870 equipment grant to enhance the Baldwin.

"The idea behind the grant ... is to simulate the collapse of a component," Lehman said.

The enhancements include replacing the manual controls with automated controls, installing multiple heads so that pressure can be applied in more than one direction and installing non-contact systems of measurement.

The computerized control system and additional actuators will allow the lab to more accurately simulate forces that structures may have to endure, especially seismic activity.

Lasers and digital photographs will allow researchers to map out a component's behavior without anything touching the component, saving time and eliminating the risk of damaging equipment.

Local governments from as far away as Hong Kong have commissioned the Baldwin for structural research. The 2001 Nisqually Earthquake in Washington state damaged the Capitol Building, and the Baldwin was used in restoration efforts. It has also been used to test the safety of Washington's two nuclear reactors.

The failure of the Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis and the threat of terrorism have made structural safety a national issue.

"There is a lot of concern right now about the collapse of structures," Roeder said.

Although the work done in the lab has traditionally been focused on the effects of seismic activity, the threat of future terrorist attacks has directed a significant portion of research toward the effects of high impacts and explosions.

"We regard [blast engineering] as a natural progression of what we already do with earthquake engineering," Roeder said.

Similar to their work with earthquakes, researchers are trying to find ways to build structures that will sustain significant damage without collapsing, contributing to fewer deaths.

"We always like to believe that the public has interest in what we are doing," Roeder said. "[Civil engineering] is research that affects people."

He also said civil engineering is frequently overlooked while more exciting technologies and other branches of science receive media attention.

"The research that goes on in the lab and the personnel in the lab are making a significant contribution to the practicing engineering community locally as well as nationally," Lehman said. "That's something that all the students and the people involved with the work can be really proud of."

[Reach reporter Cody Curtis at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]