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Technology

Earthquake-resistant paint could help brick buildings survive tremors

By Sandrine Ceurstemont

28 February 2019

Plants still stand on the balcony of a destroyed building in downtown Port-au-Prince where widespread looting is taking place on January 18, 2010, six days after an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the open-ended Richter scale hit the Haitian capital.

Paint could help reinforce buildings

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

A lick of paint could help make brick houses earthquake resistant. The paint is made with glass fibres and improves the strength of a building, as well as its flex during shakes.

Brick structures are cheap to build, but often aren’t very resistant to earthquakes. So Kenjiro Yamamoto at the University of Tokyo and colleagues created a coating to improve their resilience, consisting of standard acrylic-silicone paint resin and glass fibres.

The paint enhances the building’s overall strength, as well as its ability to …

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