Reconfigurable Reaction Wall (RRW)
The nees@berkeley Laboratory consists of a main center bay and two side bays. The high main bay houses the structural tie-down floor (60 x 20 ft in plan), and the 4,000,000 LB capacity Southwark-Emery Universal Testing machine, serviced by an overhead 12-ton capacity bridge crane. A paved area 50 x 100 feet located on the east side of the laboratory is used as a construction area.
The reconfigurable reaction blocks are designed to be used in various orientations attached to the structural tie-down or strong floor.
Strong Floor
The structural tie-down floor is located on the east end of the main bay of the laboratory. The overall plan dimensions of the tie-down slab are 20 x 60 ft. The slab has 2-1/2 in. holes located in an array at 36 in. on center over the 20 x 60 foot area. The test floor provides a completely versatile facility for testing large structural assemblies. Static or dynamic loads may be applied to specimens using hydraulic actuators, and reconfigurable reaction wall block units. The test floor was designed to act as a hollow box girder in the longitudinal direction and as a vierendeel girder in the transverse direction.
The design values of local bending and shear in the top slab are sufficient to accommodate service loads of 100,000 lbs. acting either up or down on 3 ft centers. Also, the slab was designed to resist a longitudinal horizontal force of 300,000 lbs. applied 18 inches above floor level. For the box girder, the total bending moment capacity for either negative or positive moments is 20x106 ft-lbs. The total shear capacity of the box girder is 1,500,000 lbs. divided equally between the webs. The box girder transverse vierendeel action on a 3 ft wide strip was designed for a combination of upwards and downward loads over the center web of 150,000 lbs. with corresponding downward and upward loads of 75,000 lbs. over the two outside webs.
Reaction Walls
There are twenty-four 3050 mm x 2740 mm x 760 mm (120 in. x 108 in. x 30 in.) hollow modular reinforced concrete wall units that may be post-tensioned to the strong floor using 12 threaded rods with a prestressing force of 445 kN (100 kip) per rod to build one or more reaction walls up to 13 m (42.5 ft) in height. The wall's maximum shear force and bending moment is 1780 kN (400 kip) and 5420 m-kN (4000 ft-kip), respectively.
The detailed specifications of a configuration of the reaction wall are presented in the Appendices of the manual entitled RRW System: Specifications, Usage, and Training Example.
Spreadsheet to calculate loads on the reaction walls.
