Berlin
Old houses can be reliably protected in earthquake zones. Simple and cheap. But hardly anyone knows the process.
The number of earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria has to be corrected upwards almost every day. There are now said to be over 42,000 dead. Most of them did not perish from the earthquake in the strict sense, but from debriswhen buildings collapse. also read: Earthquake in Turkey – The plight of the survivors
The best protection against earthquakes are – safe buildings. A debate has long been brewing in Turkey construction safety-, regulations – and permits. From now on, if you were to spare no expense or effort with every new building to erect buildings with complex processes and reinforced concrete, a dilemma would still remain: What will become of the old stock? How do you protect brick houses that may have structural defects or damage from previous earthquakes?
Earthquakes: You can protect houses from collapsing
That sounds like the proverbial “A million dollars”-Ask. However, it has long since been answered. It is the question that Lothar Stempniewski has been thinking about for 20 years at the Institute for Concrete Structures and Building Material Technology (IMB) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT); even today, two years after his retirement, he won’t let go of her.
Stempniewski and his team have found a solution that has been proven protectsas easy as inexpensive and has long been on the market. EQ Grid, as the process is called, has been offered by a company from Sonthofen in Bavaria since 2014: Günther Kast.
Earthquake protection: method developed at the University of Karlsruhe
Anyone who speaks to Stempniewski feels the alternating emotions, technical excitement and frustration. This is also a story about an idea whose time has not really come yet. Marketing, as Kast sales manager Jeffrey van der Linden recalls, “was extremely difficult at the beginning”.
Professor Stempniewski liked to explain the procedure to his students in the lectures like this: It’s like a belt that you buckle around a building. It holds the whole thing together and prevents individual parts from falling. “That’s the highlight”he tells our editors.
Earthquake: Protection method successfully tested on the vibrating table
According to the manufacturer, it is eight millimeters thick tissue, which is worked into the plaster. Not on, but in plaster. And comes straight to the bricks. This wraps around a building. “Any plasterer can do that,” says Stempniewski. There must be no thermal insulation between them, and paint may have to be removed if it does not let water vapor through, otherwise a wall would not be able to breathe and mold would form.
But how can he be sure that such a corset around a house also protects? Stempniewski laughs softly. He has probably heard this question a hundred times. First they tested walls in the laboratory. “Then you have to go to one Earthquake Shaking Table“, he says. There is such a facility in northern Italy, near Milan, as well as in Skopje in Macedonia.
Buildings are built on a scale of one to two on a platform. Then an earthquake is simulated, the data on the course and strength of the tremors are obtained from seismology. Stempniewski has his test buildings previously damaged, intentionally made dilapidated. Because this corresponds to the reality in a crisis area: Almost every house there has had to withstand earthquakes at some point.
Earthquake: A textile corset holds the building together
Stempniewski watched the spectators at the shaking table, that emotional roller coaster ride. The bit of disappointment at being deprived of the spectacle of a collapse and the sheer amazement. First of all, it is surprising that such a simple system can hold a building together. “Most say, ‘It can’t be.’ Yes, it can. Not one attempt failed. Every house withstood the blows.
It looks simple. “But no one has copied it yet,” he says, “we’re almost there 20 years of research.” It’s not just about the right fibers, but also how they are woven. “The mortar must also have a very specific property. We’ve been working on it for quite a long time.” It’s a purely mineral material with no chemicals in it. Also interesting: Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: This is how the children suffer
The procedure has been used sporadically for years. In Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria. People who have used the fabric “are absolutely blown away,” Stempniewsk said. Also in Turkey. In the middle of the tragedy they have carefully registered in the Kast company,
- that in Hatay, in the earthquake zone, several historic buildings that had been upgraded with EQ Grid survived the catastrophe.
- The same was the case years ago in Izmir: the buildings survived earthquakes without any visible damage, “while buildings on the same street collapsed,” says Managing Director Christoph Kast.
Incidentally, earthquake protection: Dangers are quickly suppressed
The procedure is affordable. “Roughly speaking,” Kast calculates, the costs for the client are 60 euros per square meter. A single-family house with around 200 square meters would cost a total of 10,000 to 20,000 euros. As much as heating or a new roof costs. Despite the manageable effort, the system has so far found no mass applicationas Stempniewski laments.
It is still a procedure that is relatively unknown. Such a fabric, a textile, says the scientist, is used for many people when building houses foreign. It is “a highly technical system that requires explanation,” agrees entrepreneur Kast.
But there is something else: after a disaster, many debates are held in passion and good resolutions are made. But after that it disappears danger awareness quickly out of their heads. “It’s really sad,” says Stempniewski.
Something has to happen for something to happen. And five or six years later there’s another earthquake: a long time ago. Safety and security are only relevant in people’s minds after a tragedy has happened, says Kast. “We obtain Inquiries from many parts of the world“, he now says after the quake in Turkey. The question is how quickly interest will wane again. You might also be interested in: Turkey after the earthquake: Journey to a traumatized country
people forget People avoid danger. This is actually the case everywhere, even in classic earthquake zones. Even in Japan, where earthquakes are felt almost every day. “It was frustrating for me at times,” says Stempniewski.
In Kobe, Japan, where the earth shook in 2013, ceremonies are held to mark the anniversaries. One reason is the commemoration, the memory of the victims, but another is: That danger awareness hold up, the awareness, according to Stempniewski, “that there is something slumbering in the ground”.
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