The CGM is located in the Geotechnical Modeling Facility (GMF) Building at 2655 Brooks Road on the UC Davis campus. The GMF building includes the control room for operating the 9-m radius geotechnical centrifuge, the electronics and calibration room (clean shop), and office spaces for staff and visiting researchers.
The control room is a hub of activity during testing of models on the 9-m centrifuge. This photo shows 13 members of the “City Block Team” performing a test from the control room – three PIs (UCB, UCSD, UC Davis), two CGM staff, six graduate students, and two REU students.
The CGM’s experimental facility comprises five main components: (1) a 9-m radius centrifuge, (2) a model preparation room for the 9-m centrifuge, (3) a 1-m radius centrifuge, (4) a model preparation room for the 1‑m centrifuge, and (5) an electronics and calibration room (or clean shop). A research team performing centrifuge tests spends about 70% of their time in the clean shop and model preparation rooms and the remaining 30% of their time moving their model to the centrifuge arm, performing the test, and then returning the model to the preparation room for dissection.