After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in Southern California, a committee of scientists and engineers developed a performance standard for commercial off-the-shelf residential gas shutoff devices. The Standard was adopted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as ASCE 25-97 and then by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as ANSI/ASCE 25-97. Subsequently adopted by the Structural Engineering Institute as ANSI/ASCE/SEI 25-16.
In the absence of a risk-informed, performance-based analysis to determine seismic actuation criteria, engineers generally defer to the ASCE 25 standard as it provides a reasonable starting point for seismic actuation criteria for commercial and industrial applications.
ESS’ MSC-Series Master Seismic Controller has been seismically qualified to ASCE 25-97 and is designed to power and control a wide variety of actuators including pneumatic, hydraulic, solenoid, motor-operated and variations thereof.
ESS’ White Paper on Earthquake Actuated Shutoff Systems is a useful primer on the subject.
For more information and a handy chart for estimating the expected peak ground acceleration based on earthquake magnitude and distance click here.
There are so many actuator types & brands that can be controlled by the MSC unit. Clients are encouraged to contact ESS or one of our distributors in order to discuss your application in detail. Pictured are a small sampling of the devices operated by an MSC Master Seismic Controller.
