Civil engineering experts in Peru have developed a new type of building technology which could provide a construction solution to areas at risk to regular seismic movements. The system has been created by Professor Francisco Ginocchio of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) and could soon be rolled out in the region, following successful testing.

These innovative new constructions see structures developed using prefabricated steel bars, which operate as trusses alongside triangular support structures thatare welded together to create grid that forms the basis of the walls and ceiling of the house.

This truss system, which is described as an integral masonry system, has already been used and patented by Spanish constructions firms.

Earthquake Construction Technology

However, sensing that it could be used differently, Professor Ginocchio's colleague, Architecture professor Joseph Adell, who also authored the study, put forward an alternative. Instead of standard brickwork, these structures are instead filled with adobe, a material that mixes clay, sand, natural fibres and water to fill in the shape of the building in question.

Widely used in the developing world, some academics expressed concerns that structures made from the substance would crumble in earthquakes.

However, tests at the at the PUCP's Anti-seismic Structure Laboratory, which were conducted in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), between 2008 and 2011 proved otherwise.

According to the findings, which were published in the online journal Materiales de Construcciónearlier this year, they found that two-storey buildings constructed using the reinforced trusses system could withstand even severe earthquakes.

The development could have far-reaching effect for less-developed areas, where earthquakes leaving governments with mounting repair work concerns. It follows the recent unveiling of a new construction method which could see robots take responsibility for the construction of cheap housing, using a special framework tool.

The system "is not complicated at all, and any qualified construction worker could do it", Francisco Ginocchio, a professor of civil engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), told SciDev.Net.

It was tested at PUCP's Anti-seismic Structure Laboratory, in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), between 2008 and 2011. Tests were carried out on two-storey buildings, some of them built at full scale, constructed using cheap local materials such as adobe and hollow brick.

The results were published in the online journal Materiales de Construcciónearlier this year.

Image copyright Mike Gonzalez Courtesy Wikimedia Commons