How do common, locally available construction materials differ in vibration damping performance, and which offers the best seismic protection per unit cost for low-income construction in Central Asia?
Begalieva Bermet
11/08/2026
The Central Asian Region is located in a geologically unstable area where there are constant collisions of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates and, therefore, is among the most seismically active parts of the globe. However, despite the high level of seismic activity, the construction in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and adjacent territories is often performed without taking into account seismic engineering aspects and using inexpensive local materials. This research paper is devoted to the experiment comparing the performance of five commonly used inexpensive construction materials—pine wood, fired clay brick, adobe (a mixture of clay and straw), EPS construction foam, and recycled rubber obtained from old tires—in the process of vibration damping and identifying the material that provides the best protection against earthquakes for the money.
A relatively cheap cantilever impact rig was used for conducting ten experiments for each material at three frequencies of simulated earthquakes (5 Hz, 15 Hz, 30 Hz). It consisted of an Arduino Uno and an MPU-6050 accelerometer, measuring free-decay vibrations of ten samples of each material. To identify the damping ratios, logarithmic decrement was calculated, and a cost-effectiveness index (CEI, the damping ratio per unit cost per kilogram) for each material was found by dividing the mean damping ratio by the cost per kilogram of each material in Bishkek. The maximum CEI was shown by the recycled rubber, which had the biggest damping ratio (mean ξ = 0.1244), while the fired clay brick showed the lowest one (mean ξ = 0.0080).