May 10, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 9: The Earthquake Engineering Centre —established in April 2003— at the NWFP University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, a project approved by HEC’s Departmental Development Working Party, has begun to yield positive results.

According to a news release issued by the Higher Education Commission here on Wednesday, the Centre developed a seismic building code for the NWFP government after the October 2005 Earthquake, related to the Sarhad Interim Seismic Building Code (SISBC), Modular Designs (hospitals, schools, residential buildings, standardization of materials, field practice manual, repair and strengthening manual and modalities and methodologies for the enforcement of SISBC).

The centre arranged reconnaissance surveys of Abbottabad, Mansehra, Balakot, Gari Habibullah, Muzaffarabad and Gari Dopata for structural evaluation of schools, hospitals, offices, and official residences and formulated its technical advice to equip the area with the most modern infrastructure.

The centre also organized an international conference to get expert opinion from international experts through field investigation and research data gathering.

In this regard, the chairman of HEC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Italy for joint research, lectures through video-conferencing and strong motion network. Another MoU was signed with the Earthquake Centre at Skopje, Macedonia, for the same purpose.

The HEC has provided the centre high-performance seismic simulated (shake table) digital seismographs, including data acquisition systems, accelerometers, seismometers and rotational seismometers.

The shake table is unique not only in Pakistan but in the whole region. It can be used to simulate an earthquake motion on structures being tested in the laboratory. It has all the features that are unique and the researcher does require such key capabilities.

These features include its capability to simultaneously move horizontally as well as vertically, which simulate realistic earthquake ground motions.

The recent earthquake has shown devastating examples of vertical ground component effect combined with horizontal circumstances. The size of this shake table is also very important as bigger models can be tested on this table, thus reducing the size effects. Payload capacity of the equipment is also generous, which allows researchers to test larger specimens.

All these testing features are vital in carrying out research that can help in development of seismic codes for structures and carrying out research that is not possible otherwise.

Currently, eight doctoral students have been enrolled in the Centre for Structural/EQ Engineering programme. Regular intake at the EQ centre will begin soon and the code development activities of the centre would require extensive use of this faculty.

It is pertinent to mention here that the centre has the biggest shake table after Japan, in entire Asia. This shake table, measuring 6x6m, has a cost of Rs180 million that the HEC would bear. It has the capacity to measure full-scale structures / building models of brick masonry for seismic testing.

The university will also provide consultancy services to international companies.