Promoting Sustainable and Earthquake Safe Building Construction Practices in India

摘要

The purpose of this article is to describe an initiative to introduce earthquake-safe confined masonry construction technology in India, a country where masonry construction constitutes approximately 90% of the building stock. Significant human and economic losses in past Indian earthquakes were due to inadequately designed and constructed masonry and concrete buildings. Confined masonry was identified as an alternative to current building construction practices due to its good performance in past earthquakes in Latin America and other regions. Its first large-scale application in India occurred recently at the new campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN). The project provided an opportunity for promoting this technology among students, faculty members and practicing engineers through several educational activities, including a short course for practicing engineers and a graduate course for IITGN students.