The NHERI Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST6) at the University of California, San Diego is the world's largest outdoor earthquake simulator.
A recent $16.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation along with an additional $3.4 million of in-kind support from UC San Diego expanded the shake table’s testing capabilities to more realistically recreate the ground motions during strong earthquakes. The facility can test some of the heaviest specimens in the world, from multi-story buildings to bridge columns, bridge bents, and wind turbines, now with the ability to reproduce a full range of earthquake ground motions.
The upgrade to 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) allows the table to move in six directions - back and forth, up and down, left to right, as well as rotate in all three directions.