How to minimise damage during an earthquake

How to minimise damage during an earthquake

“If you arrange this equipment below a table, then nothing on top will fall, even during an earthquake,” says Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi Prof. R. Ayothiraman, who has developed the ‘Earthquake Safety of Precious and Delicate Household Items’ along with two of his colleagues, Dr. Vasant Matsagar and Mr. Pravin Jagtap.

They are all set to display their project at the ninth edition of IIT-Delhi’s ‘Open House’ this Saturday.

In their laboratory, there are models of buildings and household items that “are subjected to real earthquakes and their behaviour is investigated”.

During an earthquake, buildings will shake, things will fall and communication lines may get cut-off even if it is a mild tremor like the one that was felt across the city on Tuesday afternoon.

“Some of the things that fall might include dangerous chemical substances in laboratories. In such a situation, even though the earthquake itself is mild, the consequences of things falling will turn out to be a bigger disaster,” says Dr. Ayothiraman, explaining the main reason behind their project.

He also says that this technology can prevent communication lines from snapping during an earthquake, provided the servers are also fixed with the equipment.

PROJECTS ON DISPLAY

Silver is said to be one of the most bacteria-resistant substances on Earth, so if you have a shirt that has elements of silver, then it naturally follows that the shirt remains bacteria-resistant.

This is the driving idea behind ‘Fresh and cool smart technology for garments’, a technology developed by a student-teacher group at IIT-Delhi to keep garments bacteria-free and fresh “even after use in sweating weather”. It is one of the 500 projects that will be on display at the Institute’s ‘Open House’.“We have used nano-silver. Although it is said to be dangerous, our technology is not. Silver is very expensive but we use about a hundredth of the concentration, so it is commercially viable,” says Prof. Ashwini K. Agarwal.

He developed the technology along with Prof. Manjeet Jassal and their student Sangita Paul. He adds that this is the only technology that is already being used commercially among this year’s research projects on display.

Other technologies that were on preview included a multi-functional wheelchair; ‘Green Power Generation’ that uses diesel engines fuelled by bio-diesel–CNG; spectrum aware rural connectivity; and bio-sensor chip for analysis of pesticide residue, heavy metal and bacterial contamination in milk.

“We get funds to the tune of Rs.100 crore to Rs.125 crore for our research projects but very few of them can be made commercially viable and we have displayed these,” says Prof. Suneet Tuli, Dean of Industrial Research and Development at the Institute.