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Earthquake experiment shakes up city student's career plans

By Cara Spilsbury
cspilsbury@haverhillgazette.com
Published: October 21, 2009

Merrimack College junior Richard Matson didn't have a typical summer vacation.

While some people his age baked at the beach, scooped ice cream or interned in stuffy offices, Matson, a Haverhill resident, spent a month in upstate New York researching earthquakes and their effect on underground pipes.

For Matson, the unpaid program could be seen as more sacrifice than reward. Matson is on his own, moving to Haverhill in 2008 after his family moved to South Carolina. He is putting himself through college with loans, scholarships and grants. He estimates his debt w ill hover around $100,000 when he graduates in 2011.

"At least I'll have an education," he said.

Matson, two Merrimack classmates and Dr. Aaron Bradshaw, a civil engineering assistant professor at the college, spent most of June at Cornell University's Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation pipeline testing facility. The Ithaca, N.Y., program is one of 15 research laboratories funded by the National Science Foundation for construction, expansion and modernization of the nation's earthquake engineering experimental research.

The goal of the project is to develop sensors that can accurately tell the damage of pipes after an earthquake depending on how far away they are from the fault line. The sensors would make rebuilding a city's infrastructure less costly and less time-consuming because pipes would no longer need to be dug up to assess the damage.

The researchers and students buried a pipe across the fault line, a 40-foot-long rectangular box filled with sand and split in half with one half of the box remaining stationary and the other half moving laterally to simulate an earthquake fault. Sensors attached to the pipeline recorded information about the condition of the pipe while it was being tested. The experiment, after the weeks it took to set up, lasted about four minutes.

Matson worked alongside other college students, graduate students, professors and professional researchers. At first, he was worried that novice college students wouldn't be as involved as researchers and grad students higher up the academic ladder. But he quickly learned that every person on the team was equally important.

"The amount of respect we got was surprising," said Matson. "They treated us as they treated themselves. We got to touch everything, the same things as the professionals. It was awesome. A lot was expected of us, but I always set high standards for myself."

The experience has Matson rethinking his choice of engineering specialities as he sets his sights on graduate school. He has always been interested in structural engineering, but he's thinking about focusing on infrastructure engineering instead, which includes creating bridges and buildings that can withstand earthquakes.

In the near future, Matson is looking forward to getting his hands dirty again at the earthquake facility at Cornell.

"I'd love to go back next year."

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