Earthquake-Resistant Devices for the Wine Industry

José Luis Almazán, UC School of Engineering 

According to estimates, the domestic wine industry lost some 125 million liters due to damaged wine tanks following the February 27th, 2010 earthquake in Chile. This is an underlying ever-present hazard faced by all production sectors nationwide given how prone our country is to seismic activity. That is why a team of UC researchers developed three seismic isolation and dissipation technologies for use in wine storage vats. 

A set of flexible devices are installed on the struts holding up the liquid containers. These devices have been designed to protect storage structures from horizontal and vertical ground displacement triggered by earthquakes. This system can be scaled to the size and weight of the tank requiring support and it is also an effective solution for protecting all types of industrial equipment. 

An additional 5% cost was required to install the technology on all the tanks but, as Project Manager Leonardo Gálvez pointed out, “it reduces the possibility of having a failure during a major quake by four-fold.”

These devices were created by Catholic University scientists in the Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Design-Engineering and Metallurgical Mechanical Engineering departments. The technology was licensed by Tersainox S.A., a stainless-steel tank manufacturer that plans on installing the seismic protective devices on vat support structures right on the assembly line.

Chile’s National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (Conicyt) funded this project through the Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (Fondef) and expects to revert the million-dollar losses usually incurred by the wine industry following frequent seismic events hitting Chile.