Thermocol in walls can make buildings earthquake resistant: Indian scientists
Thermocol could be the material of the future for construction of earthquake-resistant buildings, according to Indian scientists.
It does so by reducing the mass of the building. It could also save the energy required to develop construction materials, reports our New Delhi correspondent, quoting researchers.
Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee have found that thermocol or expanded polystyrene could resist earthquake forces on up to four-storey buildings if used as a composite material.
The researchers tested a full-scale building and a number of wall elements constructed with thermocol, sandwiched between two layers of concrete, at the National Seismic Test Facility of the Department of Earthquake Engineering, IIT Roorkee in Uttarakhand.
The investigation was supplemented with detailed computer simulation of a realistic four-storey building. Yogendra Singh, supervising the research, said the analysis shows that a four-storey building constructed with this technique is capable of resisting earthquake forces even in India's most seismic zone without any additional structural support.
They said the force being applied on a building during an earthquake arises due to the inertia effect and hence depends on the mass of the building. Thermocol resists earthquakes by reducing the mass of the building.
Besides resisting earthquakes, the use of expanded polystyrene core in concrete walls of a building can result in thermal comfort. The core provides the necessary insulation against the heat transfer between the building's interior and exterior environment. This can help in keeping the building's interiors cool in hot environments and warm during cold conditions.
The technology also has the potential to save construction material and energy, with an overall reduction in carbon footprint of buildings. It replaces a large part of concrete volume from the walls and floor/roof, say the researchers.
This replacement of concrete with the extremely lightweight EPS not only reduces mass, thereby decreasing the earthquake force acting on a building but also diminishes the burden on the natural resources and energy required to produce the cement concrete, according to the researchers.
Comments