The new California Pacific Medical Center Van Ness Campus hospital in San Francisco will be the first building in North America to use a seismic wall technology that will help the building better ride out earthquakes, according to an article on the BisNow website.
The 11-story facility, scheduled to open in March, will have 119 viscous wall dampers, a technology designed to absorb strong movement and reduce overall stress on the building.
The technology uses a steel box filled with a viscous polymer that allows a vertical steel plate connected to the floor girder above to move freely and allow the fluid to absorb the energy during an earthquake, the article said.
The technology has been used in Japan for 25 years before this project.
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