Seismic Fabric Protects Buildings in Earthquakes

German technology scientists have come up with a novel fabric design aimed at helping old structures withstand the force of earthquakes.

Known as seismic fabric, the product is meant to minimise the structural damage caused by earthquakes or, at minimum, mitigate the flow of falling debris on the inside, depending on the severity of the earthquake.

Named Sisma Calce and now being marketed by Italy's Rofix group, the seismic fabric hails from Germany's KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and it consists of layered-up elastic polypropylene and glass fibres.

Seismic Fabric

‘Thanks to the reinforcement, collapsing of walls due to earthquakes can be delayed and, in the ideal case, be avoided completely", Moritz Urban - who co-designed the seismic fabric - explained in a KIT press release. He added: ‘Particularly in the case of short and moderate earthquakes, mostly not much more additional tensile strength is needed to avoid a collapse of the building."

The fabric's straightforward construction means it can be retrofitted to a variety of different buildings and, as KIT's Lothar Stempniewski points out, in the worst case earthquake scenario, there's much benefit involved in protecting "critical infrastructure, such as homes, hospitals, schools or rest homes".

Sisma Calce's glass fibres are arranged multi-directionally and this works to lower the chance of wall cracks forming. However, if cracks do develop, the elastic polypropylene can hold together fractured wall segments, giving earthquake victims a real chance of fleeing the scene before they face danger.

Earthquake Building Protection

With the earthquake building protection product now becoming commercial available, KIT's Urban and Stempniewski intend to research ways to protect concrete buildings against earthquake damage - a potentially very tricky scenario.

"The challenge in the case of concrete is the higher force that must be absorbed", explained Stempniewski. "We thus test new materials such as carbon fibres. In doing so, we at the same time lay the foundations for future innovations to be developed by KIT."

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is among Europe's preeminent science and engineering facilities. Originally established in 1825, it took on its current identity three years ago.

Seismic Fibre image copyright and courtesy of KIT