This concrete composite can help buildings withstand quakes
TORONTO : A concrete coating developed by researchers in Canada that can help withstand earthquakes will be tested in a building in Uttarakhand later this year.
The spray-on composite developed at the University of British Columbia is the latest innovation to have emerged out of a premier centre for technological collaboration between Indian and Canadian institutes.
The eco-friendly ductile cementitious composite (EDDC) is currently being tested at an elementary school in Vancouver. Once those tests are complete, it will be applied to a school in Roorkee, according to Nemkumar Banthia, professor of civil engineering at UBC, who supervised its development, which was led by Salman Soleimani-Dashtaki.
Banthia told HT the purpose has always been “to create a material that behaves like steel”. Concrete cracks under stress, leading to the collapse of buildings. One of its major characteristics, Banthia explained, is that “it can deform three times more than steel does. If you look at steel, it will continue to take stresses, (whereas) steel will bend, give you a great deal of ability to deform the structure and the structure would still remain intact.”
“We are very confident that even a 10 mm coating of this highly ductile, elastoplastic, steel-like material is the one which can actually help us survive a number of these buildings during earthquakes,” Banthia said.