Time to design stronger buildings

Time to design stronger buildings
The Star 11/3/2005

PENANG: Developers of high-rise buildings should incorporate seismic resistance features into their building designs to enable the structures to withstand earthquakes and other disasters, including tsunamis.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia's Structural Earthquake Engineering Research head Assoc Prof Dr Azlan Adnan said presently most of the buildings in the country were not earthquake-proof.

“Developers must be willing to spend a bit more on seismic designs for their buildings to ensure long-term benefits for their clients.

“Most of the building structures in Malaysia are too stiff and rigid, thus disallowing the amount of flexibility needed to withstand stress caused by tremors and earthquakes.

“Buildings that are sensitive towards tremors may end up spotting cracks. It would be disastrous, if these cracks keep widening due to frequent tremors,” he said in an interview here yesterday.

He was among the speakers at the Malaysian Structural Steel Association's short course on The Impact of Dynamic Loads on Structures due to Wind and Earthquake at Gurney Resort Hotel & Residences Penang.

Dr Azlan said buildings could be designed to be flexible by adding a greater amount of steel reinforcement at the columns and between the columns and beams.

“For high-rise buildings, developers can install steel mechanical springs called dampers, that can act like shock absorbers to absorb vibration.

“For landed properties, they can use the base isolation method by putting bearing pads made from rubber and steel composites, that are stacked up like a sandwich, under the columns,” he said.

Dr Azlan also said his research centre was in the midst of completing an earthquake design code for the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry.

“This code will be a standard for our engineers to guide them when designing buildings in the future,” he said, adding that Sirim QAS International Sdn Bhd and Construction Industry Development Board would jointly form a committee to administer the implementation of the code.