You may not feel a lot of them, but Canada typically has more than 1,450 earthquakes a year, and a researcher at the University of Windsor wants to make sure when a big one hits, the impacts will not be destructive.
Data from Natural Resources Canada shows that while most earthquakes across the country are relatively benign, there have been big ones, and there will be in the future too.
"Currently, more than half of Canada's population lives in regions endangered by earthquake hazards," notes Neil Van Engelen, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "Recent estimates of potential economic losses due to an earthquake in eastern or western Canada exceed $60-billion."
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He is researching "seismic base isolation." It is a state-of-the-art approach to construction that acts like the shocks on a vehicle but for a building.
A special layer of flexible devices, or isolators, is installed in the foundation. It absorbs the ground motion without transferring that movement to the structure above.
Engelen said it is less expensive to retrofit a building with the isolators than reinforce floors, walls, and foundations with steel bracing.
The technology has been used worldwide since the 2000s, but Canada lags behind other countries like Japan, China, and the United States, which experienced damaging earthquakes with greater frequency. Only five buildings in Canada have isolators, although plans to rehabilitate the Parliament Centre Block include a multi-layered suspension system.
Using a dynamic hydraulic actuator system, the research team will simulate how a building responds to the movement of an earthquake. A three-dimensional scan will help the team understand the extent of the damage.
Engelen's research recently received a $258,000 grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund. The Faculty of Engineering is also contributing $46,000.
