La Opinión

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Pág. 38: El Festival de Tango recuerda la vitalidad de los arrabales
Pág. 40 – Agenda: La poesía también se mira
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20 Minutos

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Pág. 10 – Publicidad: Granada en Época Romana (Florentia Iliberritana): Ciclo de conferencias
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Granada Hoy

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Pág. 14: La solución está en la Edad Media
Pág. 15: Aconsejan a los padres educar con autoridad y diálogo
Pág. 16: Un método permite calcular el coste del daño moral de los accidente laborales
Pág. 17: Granada y San Sebastian compiten por un congreso de partículas
Pág. 25: I Jornadas de Ilustración Infantil en Bellas Artes
Deportes – Pág. 47: El Universidad se medirá en cuartos al Huelva
Actual – Portada: El Tango unirá a más de 60 artistas
Actual – Pág. 55: Más de 60 artistas participarán en el XXI Festival de Tango
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Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

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Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

Civil engineers using a specialized laboratory at Purdue University have demonstrated the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive method to strengthen buildings that have a flaw making them dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes. The flaw is widespread in China, Latin America, Turkey and other countries. The buildings have too many «partial-height» walls between structural columns and could be easily strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks, said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

Partial-height walls do not extend all the way to the ceiling, sometimes causing structural columns to fail during powerful quakes. The strengthening would not only be low-cost but also easy to install, Pujol said.

«There are countries where there is a huge gap between the building codes and what is actually being built,» he said. «Sure, government enforcement is lax, but I would like to think that if we engineers made the standards easier to apply they would also be easier to enforce. That\’s where we have an obligation to find solutions that are simple, affordable and effective.»

The researchers built an entire three-story building inside Purdue\’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research in work led by former Purdue civil engineering doctoral student Damon Fick, who is now an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The reinforced-concrete structure was subjected to forces simulating the effects of a strong earthquake by pulling and pushing the building with six powerful hydraulic «actuators.» The six actuators could be likened to giant car jacks that exerted a total of about 300,000 pounds of force on the structure.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in October during the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Beijing, China. The paper was written by Pujol, civil engineer Amadeo Benavent-Climent from the Department of Structural Mechanics at the University of Granada, civil engineer Mario E. Rodriguez from the Instituto de Ingenieria in Mexico City, and civil engineer J. Paul Smith-Pardo from Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, Wash.

«The most important result is that we showed that buildings with partial-height walls, which are very common throughout the world, especially in schools, can be improved very easily with not a lot of investment by simply rearranging the masonry walls,» Pujol said. «Granted, this is not the best technology can offer, but this is cheap, and people can do it with their own hands.»

Findings indicated the strengthened building was twice as strong and six times stiffer than the same structure having only reinforced-concrete columns but no walls. The building\’s roof displacement, or how much it moved at roof-level, was 1.5 percent of its total height, which is within what could be expected for a building of similar characteristics during a moderately strong earthquake, Pujol said.

The researchers also used computational simulations to show that the reinforced structure would likely have withstood the ground motion caused by strong earthquakes recorded in the past.

The engineers studied buildings damaged by earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and 2000 and another earthquake in Peru in 2007. In the Peru quake, columns located between windows were destroyed in one building, whereas another building in the immediate vicinity was not seriously damaged.

«So I was very much intrigued,» Pujol said. «Why were the columns in one building destroyed while a very similar building in the same area looked fine?»

Thirteen out of 20 columns were destroyed in the damaged building, and no columns failed in the other.

Pujol discovered that the building without serious damage had more full-height walls completely filling the spaces between columns than the other building.

He theorized that filling in some of the partial-height walls with masonry bricks might make vulnerable structures sturdy enough to prevent collapse during strong earthquakes and decided to test this hypothesis at the Purdue laboratory.

Fick took on the challenge of precisely controlling all six of the actuators during testing, which was critical to ensuring the researchers\’ safety as the building was pushed and pulled, Pujol said.

Features in the Bowen Laboratory, completed in 2004, include a testing area with a «strong floor» and 40-foot-high «reaction wall» containing numerous holes in which to anchor the hydraulic actuators that apply forces to large-scale structural models.
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Simple Method Strengthens Schools, Other Buildings Against Earthquakes

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Simple Method Strengthens Schools, Other Buildings Against Earthquakes

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Feb. 10 (AScribe Newswire) — Civil engineers using a specialized laboratory at Purdue University have demonstrated the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive method to strengthen buildings that have a flaw making them dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes.

The flaw is widespread in China, Latin America, Turkey and other countries. The buildings have too many «partial-height» walls between structural columns and could be easily strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks, said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

Partial-height walls do not extend all the way to the ceiling, sometimes causing structural columns to fail during powerful quakes. The strengthening would not only be low-cost but also easy to install, Pujol said.

«There are countries where there is a huge gap between the building codes and what is actually being built,» he said. «Sure, government enforcement is lax, but I would like to think that if we engineers made the standards easier to apply they would also be easier to enforce. That\’s where we have an obligation to find solutions that are simple, affordable and effective.»

The researchers built an entire three-story building inside Purdue\’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research in work led by former Purdue civil engineering doctoral student Damon Fick, who is now an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The reinforced-concrete structure was subjected to forces simulating the effects of a strong earthquake by pulling and pushing the building with six powerful hydraulic «actuators.» The six actuators could be likened to giant car jacks that exerted a total of about 300,000 pounds of force on the structure.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in October during the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Beijing, China. The paper was written by Pujol, civil engineer Amadeo Benavent-Climent from the Department of Structural Mechanics at the University of Granada, civil engineer Mario E. Rodriguez from the Instituto de Ingenieria in Mexico City, and civil engineer J. Paul Smith-Pardo from Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, Wash.

«The most important result is that we showed that buildings with partial-height walls, which are very common throughout the world, especially in schools, can be improved very easily with not a lot of investment by simply rearranging the masonry walls,» Pujol said. «Granted, this is not the best technology can offer, but this is cheap, and people can do it with their own hands.»

Findings indicated the strengthened building was twice as strong and six times stiffer than the same structure having only reinforced-concrete columns but no walls. The building\’s roof displacement, or how much it moved at roof-level, was 1.5 percent of its total height, which is within what could be expected for a building of similar characteristics during a moderately strong earthquake, Pujol said.

The researchers also used computational simulations to show that the reinforced structure would likely have withstood the ground motion caused by strong earthquakes recorded in the past.

The engineers studied buildings damaged by earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and 2000 and another earthquake in Peru in 2007. In the Peru quake, columns located between windows were destroyed in one building, whereas another building in the immediate vicinity was not seriously damaged.

«So I was very much intrigued,» Pujol said. «Why were the columns in one building destroyed while a very similar building in the same area looked fine?»

Thirteen out of 20 columns were destroyed in the damaged building, and no columns failed in the other.

Pujol discovered that the building without serious damage had more full-height walls completely filling the spaces between columns than the other building.

He theorized that filling in some of the partial-height walls with masonry bricks might make vulnerable structures sturdy enough to prevent collapse during strong earthquakes and decided to test this hypothesis at the Purdue laboratory.

Fick took on the challenge of precisely controlling all six of the actuators during testing, which was critical to ensuring the researchers\’ safety as the building was pushed and pulled, Pujol said.

Features in the Bowen Laboratory, completed in 2004, include a testing area with a «strong floor» and 40-foot-high «reaction wall» containing numerous holes in which to anchor the hydraulic actuators that apply forces to large-scale structural models.

This work was partially funded by the U.S. Army and the National Science Foundation.
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Portuguese São Domingos mine generates acidic water following 43 years of inactivity

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Portuguese São Domingos mine generates acidic water following 43 years of inactivity

The Portuguese São Domingos mine is located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt along with other mines located on the Spanish side, such as Río Tinto or Almagrera, Huelva. The mine abounds in highly contaminating waste, such as smelting dregs and ash. Active between 1857 and 1966, over time it has generated «extremely» acidic drainage due to the oxidation of sulfuric waste.

According to Antonio M. Álvarez-Valero, lead author of the study published recently in the journal Environmental Geology and currently a researcher at the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (a University of Granada – CSIC joint center), «the fundamental concern from the environmental point of view deriving from this waste oxidation is the generation of acidic waters».

And the acidic discharge from São Domingos affects Chanza dam, the largest drinking water reservoir serving Huelva, because the pollutants undergo «a relative attenuation».

To evaluate the environmental impact and determine the level of acidification of some components, the study presents a characterization of the mineralogical, geochemical and physical properties of the mining waste from the São Domingos district. «We have established, through a later work, the potential risk of moving the toxic metals in this waste, and their possible incorporation into the food chain», Álvarez-Valero explains to SINC.

Although the mine is abandoned, it remains active «from the point of view of contamination». The researcher says that the contaminating impact of the mine is renewed in annual cycles. During the wet or raining periods, the contaminating elements «re-dissolve and once again generate acidity», Álvarez-Valero points out.

The analysis shows that «the massive presence of sulfurs in São Domingos in some of the waste ensures a continuous, annual generation of acidic mine drainage», the researcher confirms.

The mine, which is considered medium in size compared to others, is exposed to «a remarkable» volume of waste: 25 Mm3. Although a large part of this waste is inaccessible because it is located beneath the town of São Domingos, «its high acidification potential represents a threat for environmental pollution», the scientist says.

Faced with this situation, the researchers say that the methodical sequence of this study should be applied to other mines in the same area, such as Caveira, Lousal, Aljustrel, in the south-east of Portugal, and Tharsis, La Zarza, Peña del Hierro, Almagrera or Río Tinto, in Huelva, where research projects are already underway.

The São Domingos mining district was active between the 19th and 20th centuries, but «mining there goes back to pre-Roman times», says Álvarez-Valero. In the abandoned or fossil mining areas, the largest sources of soil and surface water contamination come from the leaching (washing) of metals and metalloids from waste rich in sulfur (such as pyrite).
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Simple Method Strengthens Schools, other Buildings Against Earthquakes

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Simple Method Strengthens Schools, other Buildings Against Earthquakes

West Lafayette, Indiana – Civil engineers using a specialized laboratory at Purdue University have demonstrated the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive method to strengthen buildings that have a flaw making them dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes.

The flaw is widespread in China, Latin America, Turkey and other countries. The buildings have too many «partial-height» walls between structural columns and could be easily strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks, said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

Partial-height walls do not extend all the way to the ceiling, sometimes causing structural columns to fail during powerful quakes. The strengthening would not only be low-cost but also easy to install, Pujol said.

«There are countries where there is a huge gap between the building codes and what is actually being built,» he said. «Sure, government enforcement is lax, but I would like to think that if we engineers made the standards easier to apply they would also be easier to enforce. That\’s where we have an obligation to find solutions that are simple, affordable and effective.»

The researchers built an entire three-story building inside Purdue\’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research in work led by former Purdue civil engineering doctoral student Damon Fick, who is now an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The reinforced-concrete structure was subjected to forces simulating the effects of a strong earthquake by pulling and pushing the building with six powerful hydraulic «actuators.» The six actuators could be likened to giant car jacks that exerted a total of about 300,000 pounds of force on the structure.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in October during the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Beijing, China. The paper was written by Pujol, civil engineer Amadeo Benavent-Climent from the Department of Structural Mechanics at the University of Granada, civil engineer Mario E. Rodriguez from the Instituto de Ingenieria in Mexico City, and civil engineer J. Paul Smith-Pardo from Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, Wash.

«The most important result is that we showed that buildings with partial-height walls, which are very common throughout the world, especially in schools, can be improved very easily with not a lot of investment by simply rearranging the masonry walls,» Pujol said. «Granted, this is not the best technology can offer, but this is cheap, and people can do it with their own hands.»

Findings indicated the strengthened building was twice as strong and six times stiffer than the same structure having only reinforced-concrete columns but no walls. The building\’s roof displacement, or how much it moved at roof-level, was 1.5 percent of its total height, which is within what could be expected for a building of similar characteristics during a moderately strong earthquake, Pujol said.

The researchers also used computational simulations to show that the reinforced structure would likely have withstood the ground motion caused by strong earthquakes recorded in the past.

The engineers studied buildings damaged by earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and 2000 and another earthquake in Peru in 2007. In the Peru quake, columns located between windows were destroyed in one building, whereas another building in the immediate vicinity was not seriously damaged.

«So I was very much intrigued,» Pujol said. «Why were the columns in one building destroyed while a very similar building in the same area looked fine?»

Thirteen out of 20 columns were destroyed in the damaged building, and no columns failed in the other.

Pujol discovered that the building without serious damage had more full-height walls completely filling the spaces between columns than the other building.

He theorized that filling in some of the partial-height walls with masonry bricks might make vulnerable structures sturdy enough to prevent collapse during strong earthquakes and decided to test this hypothesis at the Purdue laboratory.

Fick took on the challenge of precisely controlling all six of the actuators during testing, which was critical to ensuring the researchers\’ safety as the building was pushed and pulled, Pujol said.

Features in the Bowen Laboratory, completed in 2004, include a testing area with a «strong floor» and 40-foot-high «reaction wall» containing numerous holes in which to anchor the hydraulic actuators that apply forces to large-scale structural models.

This work was partially funded by the U.S. Army and the National Science Foundation.
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Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

Escrito por

Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

Civil engineers using a specialized laboratory at Purdue University have demonstrated the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive method to strengthen buildings that have a flaw making them dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes.

The flaw is widespread in China, Latin America, Turkey and other countries. The buildings have too many «partial-height» walls between structural columns and could be easily strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks, said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

Partial-height walls do not extend all the way to the ceiling, sometimes causing structural columns to fail during powerful quakes. The strengthening would not only be low-cost but also easy to install, Pujol said.

«There are countries where there is a huge gap between the building codes and what is actually being built,» he said. «Sure, government enforcement is lax, but I would like to think that if we engineers made the standards easier to apply they would also be easier to enforce. That\’s where we have an obligation to find solutions that are simple, affordable and effective.»

The researchers built an entire three-story building inside Purdue\’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research in work led by former Purdue civil engineering doctoral student Damon Fick, who is now an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The reinforced-concrete structure was subjected to forces simulating the effects of a strong earthquake by pulling and pushing the building with six powerful hydraulic «actuators.» The six actuators could be likened to giant car jacks that exerted a total of about 300,000 pounds of force on the structure.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in October during the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Beijing, China. The paper was written by Pujol, civil engineer Amadeo Benavent-Climent from the Department of Structural Mechanics at the University of Granada, civil engineer Mario E. Rodriguez from the Instituto de Ingenieria in Mexico City, and civil engineer J. Paul Smith-Pardo from Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, Wash.

«The most important result is that we showed that buildings with partial-height walls, which are very common throughout the world, especially in schools, can be improved very easily with not a lot of investment by simply rearranging the masonry walls,» Pujol said. «Granted, this is not the best technology can offer, but this is cheap, and people can do it with their own hands.»

Findings indicated the strengthened building was twice as strong and six times stiffer than the same structure having only reinforced-concrete columns but no walls. The building\’s roof displacement, or how much it moved at roof-level, was 1.5 percent of its total height, which is within what could be expected for a building of similar characteristics during a moderately strong earthquake, Pujol said.

The researchers also used computational simulations to show that the reinforced structure would likely have withstood the ground motion caused by strong earthquakes recorded in the past.

The engineers studied buildings damaged by earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and 2000 and another earthquake in Peru in 2007. In the Peru quake, columns located between windows were destroyed in one building, whereas another building in the immediate vicinity was not seriously damaged.

«So I was very much intrigued,» Pujol said. «Why were the columns in one building destroyed while a very similar building in the same area looked fine?»

Thirteen out of 20 columns were destroyed in the damaged building, and no columns failed in the other.

Pujol discovered that the building without serious damage had more full-height walls completely filling the spaces between columns than the other building.

He theorized that filling in some of the partial-height walls with masonry bricks might make vulnerable structures sturdy enough to prevent collapse during strong earthquakes and decided to test this hypothesis at the Purdue laboratory.

Fick took on the challenge of precisely controlling all six of the actuators during testing, which was critical to ensuring the researchers\’ safety as the building was pushed and pulled, Pujol said.

Features in the Bowen Laboratory, completed in 2004, include a testing area with a «strong floor» and 40-foot-high «reaction wall» containing numerous holes in which to anchor the hydraulic actuators that apply forces to large-scale structural models.

This work was partially funded by the U.S. Army and the National Science Foundation.
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Posters remind the Spanish of Vietnam’s national liberation

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Posters remind the Spanish of Vietnam’s national liberation

VietNamNet Bridge – An exhibition of posters that portray the pride, power and determination of Vietnam in its past struggle for national independence as well as for present reconstruction is taking place in Granada city of Spain.

Entitled “The Renaissance of a Nation,” the show displays more than 40 pictures by Vietnamese painters between the 60s and 90s of the last century, which were collected from the large pool of over 500 pieces of art in Vietnam’s National Museum of Arts.

The event, which runs from Feb. 9 to Mar. 4, is jointly organised by the cultural centre under the University of Granada (UGR) and the Asian House – an agency that works to promote relations between Spain and Southeast Asian countries.

On the ocassion, the UGR will hold several talkshows and screening of all social aspects in Vietnam in order to help those interested in the country get better understanding of the resounding victory of its war for national liberation.

Similar poster shows were opened in the capical city of Madrid in 2008 and in Barcelona in 2007.
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Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

Escrito por

Simple method strengthens schools, other buildings against earthquakes

Civil engineers using a specialized laboratory at Purdue University have demonstrated the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive method to strengthen buildings that have a flaw making them dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes.

The flaw is widespread in China, Latin America, Turkey and other countries. The buildings have too many «partial-height» walls between structural columns and could be easily strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks, said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

Partial-height walls do not extend all the way to the ceiling, sometimes causing structural columns to fail during powerful quakes. The strengthening would not only be low-cost but also easy to install, Pujol said.

«There are countries where there is a huge gap between the building codes and what is actually being built,» he said. «Sure, government enforcement is lax, but I would like to think that if we engineers made the standards easier to apply they would also be easier to enforce. That\’s where we have an obligation to find solutions that are simple, affordable and effective.»

The researchers built an entire three-story building inside Purdue\’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research in work led by former Purdue civil engineering doctoral student Damon Fick, who is now an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The reinforced-concrete structure was subjected to forces simulating the effects of a strong earthquake by pulling and pushing the building with six powerful hydraulic «actuators.» The six actuators could be likened to giant car jacks that exerted a total of about 300,000 pounds of force on the structure.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in October during the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Beijing, China. The paper was written by Pujol, civil engineer Amadeo Benavent-Climent from the Department of Structural Mechanics at the University of Granada, civil engineer Mario E. Rodriguez from the Instituto de Ingenieria in Mexico City, and civil engineer J. Paul Smith-Pardo from Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, Wash.

«The most important result is that we showed that buildings with partial-height walls, which are very common throughout the world, especially in schools, can be improved very easily with not a lot of investment by simply rearranging the masonry walls,» Pujol said. «Granted, this is not the best technology can offer, but this is cheap, and people can do it with their own hands.»

Findings indicated the strengthened building was twice as strong and six times stiffer than the same structure having only reinforced-concrete columns but no walls. The building\’s roof displacement, or how much it moved at roof-level, was 1.5 percent of its total height, which is within what could be expected for a building of similar characteristics during a moderately strong earthquake, Pujol said.

The researchers also used computational simulations to show that the reinforced structure would likely have withstood the ground motion caused by strong earthquakes recorded in the past.

The engineers studied buildings damaged by earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and 2000 and another earthquake in Peru in 2007. In the Peru quake, columns located between windows were destroyed in one building, whereas another building in the immediate vicinity was not seriously damaged.

«So I was very much intrigued,» Pujol said. «Why were the columns in one building destroyed while a very similar building in the same area looked fine?»

Thirteen out of 20 columns were destroyed in the damaged building, and no columns failed in the other.

Pujol discovered that the building without serious damage had more full-height walls completely filling the spaces between columns than the other building.

He theorized that filling in some of the partial-height walls with masonry bricks might make vulnerable structures sturdy enough to prevent collapse during strong earthquakes and decided to test this hypothesis at the Purdue laboratory.

Fick took on the challenge of precisely controlling all six of the actuators during testing, which was critical to ensuring the researchers\’ safety as the building was pushed and pulled, Pujol said.

Features in the Bowen Laboratory, completed in 2004, include a testing area with a «strong floor» and 40-foot-high «reaction wall» containing numerous holes in which to anchor the hydraulic actuators that apply forces to large-scale structural models.

This work was partially funded by the U.S. Army and the National Science Foundation.
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