What's keeping LA's City Hall on its feet?

One of the great things about rubber is that if you put it between two things, it can help prevent the motion of the one thing from being transmitted to the other.

Like say, the Earth and a building.

Bridgestone's advanced technologies include special bearings, usually composed of multi-layer "sandwiches" of steel and rubber, that can be placed in the foundations of buildings to keep the motion of the Earth in an earthquake from shaking the building apart and bringing it crashing down.

Bridgestone's seismic isolation bearings are complex structures of rubber and steel, optimized to keep earthquake forces from destroying structuctures.

Called "seismic isolation bearings," these Bridgestone devices are protecting buildings in Japan, including high-rises, office buildings, homes and schools, as well as America's own Los Angeles City Hall.

Creating the correct stiffness and vibration dampening is an intensely complex science, and Bridgestone has actually created a computer program to assist designers in choosing the right type of earthquake isolation for each situation.

Yet another useful application of the "springy" nature of rubber.