SDA-engineering RS offers through commercial and supplier agreements an innovative rubber system that connects walls and structural elements

The innovative product is made for the construction of the residential buildings, solving the problems that occur during the earthquakes, when due to RC structure deflection infill walls are being damaged and thus resulting in high repair costs.

The innovative rubber system is made out of recycled rubber components and thus provides soft connection between infills and RC elements. In this way infills are protected from the interaction with RC elements and thus infills and the whole structure are earthquake resistant. This results in significant savings in use of less reinforcement and concrete. Soft connection between infill walls and RC structure allows simple design procedure and fast construction.

Our product advantages are:

• The product is patented

• Protects infill walls from damage due to earthquakes and impacts

• Reduces by 20-40% (taking into account different levels of PGA=0.1g-0.4g) the amounts of concrete and reinforcement used for RC elements, due to the fact that in the case of application of this connection shear forces acting to the RC elements are lower than in the case when it is not applied

• Reduces costs by 40-100 thousand euros taking into account concrete and reinforcement savings, calculated based on the following prices (steel: 1.43 EUR/kg for walls, columns, beams and 1.67 EUR/kg for slabs and concrete: 149 EUR/m3 for walls, 209 EUR/m3 for columns and beams, 179 EUR/m3 for slabs). This saving can be considered to be around 1-2% of building investment costs.

• Reduces emission of CO2 by 40-80 thousand kg based on the savings in concrete and reinforcement and taking into account production of the connection. Generic data from the oekobaudat database was used to calculate the CO2 savings. Here, 0.6154 kg CO2 equivalent per kg of steel was calculated for the steel. For concrete, 259.3 kg CO2 equivalent per m³ of concrete was assumed. The data for this connection comes from the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). All data refer to the manufacturing process and do not include transportation.

• Product is made out of recycled rubber and at the moment a study showing reduction of waste by applying this product and pollution is undertaken.

• Easy and fast application to every type and size of the brick