Kiwi technology that can prevent major damage to buildings from our next big earthquake

Using carbon fibres, the team wrapped weak points on 4-meter concrete walls loaded with the weight of several floors.

Although the leaves are incredibly thin – only a few millimeters thick, and weigh almost nothing – they are incredibly strong.

“It’s three, four, or five times stronger than steel,” Del Rey Castillo says.

Hydraulics were used over two days to slowly shake the wall, pushing it far beyond what would happen in a real earthquake.

The fibers were found to be 50 percent higher than the gold standard for earthquake strengthening.

“Fortunately we didn’t have an earthquake to see if it would work, but I’m confident the building is better than it was before,” Del Rey Castillo said.

New Zealand built many challenging concrete buildings before the 1980s. Their walls are thin, which means that in the event of an earthquake, there is a high probability that they will twist and collapse.

But getting them to abide by modern building code is an expensive and time-consuming business.

“We all want to see our buildings being built aggressively in New Zealand, and the sooner the better,” says Natalie Belfort, Director of Earthquake Commission (EQC) Research.

The EQC funds this research, and says the work is urgent. That’s because when an Alpine or Wellington fault erupts, the vibration could potentially cause serious damage to many towns and cities.

“We are now seeing a lot of these buildings being reused for residential purposes, so it is really important that they are retrofitted to a standard that can withstand these events,” Balfour says.

While no one knows when that will happen, we can prepare for it.

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