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Installing crack displacement sensors on central tower of Watts Tower
University of California, Los Angeles, civil engineering graduate student Jackson English installs crack displacement sensors on the central tower of the Watts Towers.
More about this image
Engineers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have joined with conservators from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art who want to repair and prevent persistent cracks in historic folk art structures. The Watts Towers are comprised of 17 steel and mosaic sculptures built by artist Simon Rodia and have long been a symbol of strength and beauty in south Los Angeles. They were completed in 1954 after 32 years of work.
The U.S. National Science Foundation's Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering Program is supporting the engineering research (grant CMMI 1331299), which employs monitoring equipment and technical support from the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). NEES is an NSF-sponsored network of experimental facilities and cyberinfrastructure aimed at reducing losses from earthquakes.
Read the entire story in the NSF Discovery "Engineers, art conservators collaborate to preserve iconic L.A. landmark". (Date image taken: 2013; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Aug. 18, 2017)
Credit: Sylvia Dorsch/Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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