Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/383377
16 W i n e s & V i n e s O C T O B e R 2 0 1 4 S E P T E M B E R N E W S O C T O B E R N E W S sliding off the ends of barrels. Suppliers do offer some tools to help secure barrel racks. Topco offers its "topcap" rack, which is designed to secure the top barrels of a rack to help prevent the top barrels from falling off a rack into other stacks. The com- pany will also modify old two-barrel racks into the more secure four-barrel racks. In 2009, Western Square developed a seismic- support system for barrel racks with engineer- ing professor Charles Chadwell of California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The specialized racks employ ball bear- ings to securely move with the force of an earthquake rather than topple. Chadwell said Western Square sold several of the new racks, but a few months later it became clear they couldn't handle daily condi- tions inside a winery. He said some of the moving parts were housed in a semi-enclosed system that wasn't completely watertight. When cellar workers washed the barrels, water made its way into the mechanism, and eventually it rusted solid. Soon after Chadwell and Western Square realized they had a problem, wineries lost in- terest in a new redesigned product because of the recession. "This type of safety equipment was not of interest in the reces- sion," he said. When the econ- omy improved, Chadwell said he and Western Square started working on the redesign once more and, "After this earth- quake we certainly kickstarted the work in high gear." Chadwell said he has devel- oped a new prototype with a spring system to reset the bearings, and everything will be stainless steel, Teflon or high-grade plastic. He said the final design should be fairly quick to manufacture once it's been thor- oughly tested. Wineries will only need to purchase one per stack, and the idea is to enable those set up for two-barrel racks to add a degree of seismic safety. Nothing is ever fully earthquake-proof, and Chadwell said certain existing practices just are not safe at all. "Stacking six high is a bad idea just all the way around," he added. Based on shaker table studies he performed at Cal Poly, Chadwell said barrels stacked four high with one of the specialized racks on the bottom could handle shaking similar to the recent major earth- quake in California, and even stacks five high seemed to manage. "At six high, I don't con- done that for any system." He added that seismic regulations have so far addressed ensuring the buildings and key infrastructure can withstand earthquakes, but there may be more interest in securing "heavy contents," which would include bar- rels. He said wineries may soon see policy in place requiring them to have some type of seismic restraint system to help keep workers safe from toppling barrel racks. "Something that will come out of this is heavy contents and how it relates to life safety," he said. Marrow said he'd also like to see winery "shark cages," or heavy-duty steel cages placed in easily accessible parts of the barrel room. If an earthquake hits a winery, or a forklift accident triggers a stack collapse, workers could run to the cage and be pro- tected from falling barrels. "If anything goes wrong, at least they have a fighting chance to get into the cage," he said. "They may be stuck there for a while, but at least they'll be alive." —Andrew Adams (Continued from page 15.) "Stacking six high is a bad idea just all the way around.'" —Charles Chadwell, California Polytechnic University