Magnetic field tech looks to ‘hover’ buildings in earthquakes
The company, which created the Hendo Hoverboard, has announced that it is integrating the ShakeAlert earthquake early-warning software – developed and run by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) – into its three-part foundation system for decoupling and protecting objects and buildings from events like earthquakes, floods and sea-level rise. As part of its collaboration with USGS, Arx Pax hopes to confirm the feasibility of its Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA) technology – used in the Hendo Hoverboard – for seismic protection.
The MFA technology is based on Lenz’s Law, which states that an electric current, induced by a source such as a changing magnetic field, always creates a counterforce opposing the force inducing it. This principle is used in the company’s hover engines by focusing electromagnetic energy downward over a conductive surface, generating current, which in turn produces an opposing magnetic field.
The company’s three-part foundation system comprises a containment vessel, a buffer medium and a construction platform. The construction platform, on which a building can be built, rests on the buffer medium, which in turn rests on the containment vessel. The buffer medium is described as being either a fluid, gas or a liquefiable solid.
According to Arx Pax co-founder and CEO Greg Henderson, "Weaving ShakeAlert into our MFA seismic isolation solution provides a valuable new tool to architects, engineers, and developers who are looking for a better way to build in areas affected by earthquakes. Our goal is to eliminate structural movement by pinpointing the exact time an object or building’s ‘landing gear’ should retract and activate the hover engines.”
In an interview with Autodesk’s Line//Shape//Space, Henderson considers the possibilities of joining MFA technology to the Internet of Things, "There are wearables, and we are thinking of something called ‘movables.’ If you think of movables in terms of the Internet of Things, the shortest route between two points is a straight line. But this technology can also redefine motion. We have to now ask ourselves, why is something moving from point A to point B? What if A and B met in the center? With the Internet of Things, systems have the intelligence to move together for any given point in time, so points A and B can change as well."
Arx Pax: arxpax.com
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