10144561FIBRE-ISOTUR - "sustainable low-cost FIBRE-reinforced elastomeric ISOlators for seismic-resilient-construction in TURkiyeActiveCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe project will develop novel sustainable fibre-reinforced rubber isolators (FREIs) that can be used as a low-cost solution for the construction of seismic-resilient buildings in highly seismic areas such as Türkiye. The 2023 Türkiye--Syria earthquakes has caused widespread damage in an area as large as Germany and has affected 14 million people, with about 1.5 million left homeless. People in rural areas and with lower income have been severely affected. Thus, there is an urgent need of reconstructing these areas with more earthquake-resilient constructions. Seismic isolation is a well-established technique for protecting structures and their content from earthquakes. Traditionally, steel-laminated elastomeric isolators (SEIs) are used to decouple the motion of structures from that of the ground. However, these isolators can be quite expensive and thus their use is justified only for protecting critical structures such as hospitals, schools and emergency command centres. TARRC, a world-leading independent rubber consulting, testing and R&D laboratory, has contributed to the development of structural elastomeric bearing and fibre-reinforced elastomeric isolators (FREIs) as a more economic seismic isolation solution. In FREIs, the steel laminates are replaced with fabric (fibre meshes) to reduce significantly costs and weight of isolators. Recent works have shown that there is a good potential for the development of FREIs using recycled compounds reinforced with polyester or nylon fabrics with a performance almost matching the more expensive FREIs made of virgin rubber and carbon/glass fibres. This would contribute to further reducing costs while increasing sustainability of the isolators. However, more work is needed to pave the way for the commercialisation of FREIs and their uptake for the construction of low-cost isolated buildings in seismic areas such as Türkiye. For this purpose, TARRC will carry out research and development (R&D) activities to identify the optimal compounds (incorporating recycled/reclaimed rubber), fibres and manufacturing procedures for FREIs. These activities will be complemented by those carried out by University of Strathclyde aimed at creating tools for the assessment, design, and optimisation of FREIs and for evaluating seismic performance of structures equipped with them. An important part of this R&D programme would be developing strategies for recycling FREIs at their end-of-life (EoL) to enhance their sustainability. The developed manufacturing process will be passed to Özdekan Rubber located in Ankara-Türkiye, which will build a mock-up building isolated with the developed FREIs in order to validate and showcase the developed technology to the local and international stakeholders and potential clients.