New Delhi: Amid increasing fear of earthquake and after loss of thousands of lives in April's earthquake in Nepal, the researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT-Roorkee) have come up with a new construction technique for quake-resistant housing.
The scientists have used recycled pieces of rubber tyres and the scheme is based on the principle of dissipating energy.
Pankaj Agarwal of the department of earthquake engineering, IIT Roorkee told a leading daily, "This is based on interlocking of pre-cast slotted concrete blocks with the help of energy dissipation links. These links are prepared by recycling pieces of rubber tyres laminated by very thin steel plates. These links not only restrict the movement of each concrete block is in all possible directions but also dissipate the energy through yielding under extreme earthquake loading conditions."
"The load capacity of these links is kept lower than that of the concrete blocks so that under strong earthquake shaking, the energy is dissipated through friction between concrete blocks and the deformation of links without damaging the concrete blocks," Agarwal further said.
The model was tested under simulated earthquake conditions similar to the seismic zone V (the most severe zone) of Indian Seismic Code.
Agarwal said that the model was tested for a single storey building and plans were on for testing a similar model for a double storey.
