Scotland may not be a hotbed
of seismic activity but Edinburgh
Napier is at the epicentre of
innovative research that could
save lives in earthquake-affected
parts of the world. And it all
started with cycle paths
In April 2015, Nepal was struck by an earthquake which killed 9,000
people. It also destroyed many of the country’s historic structures,
including the 16th-century Kasthamandap temple after which the
capital city Kathmandu is named. Now researchers at Edinburgh Napier
are working on an innovative method of retrofitting existing buildings
and monuments to protect them from future earthquakes – and the
genesis of the project can be traced back to work at the Mountain Bike
Centre of Scotland.
Dr John McDougall, Director of Research for the School of Engineering
& the Built Environment, who is leading this project, explains:
“We were looking at the use of shredded rubber to improve the resilience
of the mountain bike trails and the more we worked on the project,
Dr John McDougall
the more it became apparent that this
could have some significant application in
managing the dynamic properties of the
ground to cope with seismic disturbances.
“It’s quite a small step for us but at a public
level I can see that it’s a huge leap from
Glentress mountain biking to somewhere
on the tectonic margins of the earth where
buildings are falling down and people are
dying in large numbers.”
Up until now, work in this area has focused
on protecting new-build structures
but John and PhD student Juan Bernal-
Sanchez, together with geotechnical
engineering colleagues Dr Daniel Barreto,
Dr Marina Miranda and Dr Katerina
Marinelli, believe they are developing a
novel way of installing a shredded rubber
and sand mixture that will allow existing
structures to be protected.
The shredded rubber and sand mixture can be retrofitted to protect existing buildings
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