DISASTER RESISTANCE |
| Ferrocement Technology |
| - reduces cost of disaster |
| - makes management of disaster easy |
| - saves human lives during disasters |
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| Ferrocement Structures |
| - least affected by all disasters |
| - do not collapse during disaster |
| - reduce cost of repairs and reconstruction after disaster |
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| Ferrocement takes care of Disaster before it occurs |
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| Disaster Management is mainly after it occurs |
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| Contribution of Ferrocement Technology before disaster is extensive. |
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| It leaves quite less for Disaster Management to contribute |
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Ferrocement Structures resists all disasters such as Earthquake, cyclones, Fire, Floods,
bombardments, land slides etc. |
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| Ferrocement structures are the need of the day. |
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| FERROCEMENT THE BEST MATERIAL FOR DISASTER RESISTANCE |
| Introduction: |
Disaster of any kind is menace to society causing havoc, destruction of property, loss of life,
injury to living beings and loss of large amount of money. It causes disturbances in future life of people affected with no other alternative but to accept it. To come out of it, it takes years irrespective of help and support they get from the Government and social organizations. Disasters in the form of earth- quake, cyclones, floods and fire are quite frequent. Disaster Management groups are established to prepare themselves to face the same and manage efficiently after its occurrence. Earthquake disasters are generally sudden and cannot be redicted. Floods and cyclones are predicted and action is taken to shift people to safe areas. However loss of life, injury to living beings, damage to properties do take place and these have to be accepted. ccurrence of fires is accidental , may be due to lapse in precautions or sometimes natural as forest fires. |
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Loss of life is difficult to prevent in the case of earthquakes though rescue takes place after the occurrence of disaster. In the case of floods lives are saved when there is prediction and in the case of fire lives are saved where rescue operations are successful. |
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However in all types of disasters the damage to properties, losses in communications and services such as power supply, roads, railways, telecom lines are inevitable |
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| Earthquakes: |
Ferrocement is highly elastic material. As such under severe earthquakes, it gets deformed but regains its initial shape and position as before. Thus it has high energy absorbing capacity. In most of the cases the damage to Ferrocement structures can be repaired successfully. Very severe earthquake forces may deform Ferrocement structures beyond repairs which has not happened uptill now. But such structures shall never collapse. In such cases there is no loss of human life and people can be evacuated with least injuries. Even moveable properties in such structure can be extricated with least damages. |
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Ferrocement structures are cage structures with sufficient reinforcement to take the required loads and can be most appropriate even for sky rise structures. The self weight of such structures is almost 50% of similar R.C.C. structures. As such the earthquake forces are very much less to that extent. The Ferrocement skyrise under earthquake loads will swing by about a metre or so and come back to its original position. |
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In case of Ferrocement water towers, the self weight of water tank on the tower is less by more than 50% and as such forces due to earthquake are very much less. The performance of Ferrocement components of the tower frame shall be far superior to that of similar R.C.C. frame. Therefore, the Ferrocement water towers shall be far better than that of R.C.C. |
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Following is the communication received from Prof. Alonso Fernandez, Mexico working on
Ferrocement technology. In 1999 occurrence of severe earthquake measuring 7.2 to 7.4 on the Richter scale, destroyed or severely damaged thousands of houses, hundreds of schools and churches and took many lives. He was pleased to report that the school, all houses, the
classroom laboratory, the largest auditorium, in Mexico all the bridges and small dams that
they had designed and constructed were untouched. In Mexico itself, an eyewitness reported
behaviour of 100 sq. mtr. Auditorium during the earthquake. He reported deformations of the
building resembling a jelly on a plate and then revert back to its initial form and dimensions. |
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The cost of Ferrocement structures should be less than that of similar structures particularly R.C.C., Steel or prestressed concrete. At the same time efficiency of Ferrocement structures shall have no parallel vis-à-vis R.C.C., steel. Under severe earthquake conditions onventional structures collapse whereas Ferrocement structures do not but deform. In the case of conventional structures there has to be total reconstruction with heavy costs whereas such costs can be eliminated if Ferrocement structures are adopted and thereby huge reconstruction costs as well as loss of life can be averted. |
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| Cyclones |
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Cyclones cause damages to wooden houses as well as roofs of masonry houses. Generally wooden houses get totally destroyed causing loss of life. Cyclones are generally predictable and people can be evacuated, the property loss can be saved to a large extent. With the use of Ferrocement houses, the loss of life is mitigated to the maximum. Ferrocement houses are strong box structures with bottom, sides, top and floors all well connected with each other and monolith and shall resist effectively severe cyclonic condition. These Ferrocement box houses can get toppled worst come to worst. If they are anchored to the ground then even this may not be possible. |
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Even large industrial structures with Ferrocement framework and roof shall perform far better as compared to conventional R.C.C. or steel industrial structures with metal roof or cement roof which are fixed to the trusses and purlins framework with nut bolt arrangement. In the case of Ferrocement industrial structures the connections are monolith and no nut bolt system is adopted. At the same time, Ferrocement roofs are comparatively heavy and therefore the chances of being blown off are the least in case of mild cyclones.
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Ferrocement high rise buildings, bridges etc. shall have far superior performance as compared to conventional. The wind force are considered less severe as compared to earthquake force. Such Ferrocement structures will get deformed temporarily. Hence there is no question of
repairs of Ferrocement structures as a result of forces due to cyclones. Ferrocement high rise buildings can swing like a palm tree and regain its position after the cyclone is over. |
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| Floods: |
Ferrocement structures are constructed as box consisting of footings, floorings, walls, roofs as a one single unit with efficient interconnection with floors, walls and roof. There is no collapse as it takes place in the case of other structures during floods particularly walls are
single piece from corner to corner and top and bottom. Ferrocement structures take the impact due to floods very efficiently since Ferrocement is basically energy absorbing material. Since there is no collapse mechanism in the case of Ferrocement structures, loss of human life and other damages is the least. Ferrocement structures can be constructed on hollow box foundation. In such case a structure will float during floods. It may get drifted somewhere but the occupants shall be safe. Thus there is no question of sinking. |
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People can take shelter and survive and be safe, if shifted to Community structures with hollow foundation. |
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| Fire: |
Ferrocement is highly fire resistant material upto 750º C resisting for a period of 48 hours or so. Even afterwards there will not be total collapse of Ferrocement structures. Such behaviour is accepted by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation) many years before in 1972. Such Ferrocement structures are most appropriate for construction of important structures like hospitals, schools, hotels, government buildings, slums etc. With use of ceramics, the Ferrocement structures can be made to resist even higher temperatures and longer periods with increase in cost. |
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| As experimented above by UNIDO of UNO |
Devastation by fire |
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Explosion: |
Ferrocement is highly energy absorbing material far better than wood and steel. Wood and steel can get torn off in explosions whereas Ferrocement structures can be constructed economically and will resist explosions and punctures. |
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| Enemy Bombardment: |
Ferrocement is highly absorbing material far better than wood & stronger than steel. Therefore it can efficiently sustain impact and blast forces. During bombardment ferrocement structure will get punctured but shall not collapse as RCC, masonry or any other structure. It will be very easy to repair these structures faster and at lesser cost.
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| Land slide on Hilly Sloping Area: |
Sometimes RCC brick masonry housing slide along slope of hills due to landside earthquake. Ferrocement being light will not slide easily. They can be better anchored to main ground. If at all ferrocement houses slide it will be almost intact and if slide, they are easily repairable damage and can be used again. |
