Avoiding Structural Disaster through Standards Infrastructure

2010-07-14

In the last ten years, an estimated 600,000 people around the world have been killed by natural disasters. In an average year there are approximately 12 million earthquakes, 10,000 floods, hundreds of tornados and dozens of wildfires and tsunamis.

Many intricate elements must align to ensure the least amount of damage to Canadians in the event of a natural disaster. For the most part, the number and range of variables that must come together to keep us safe go largely unnoticed. Among those invisible components are thousands of standards and related conformity assessment schemes.

A typical Canadian office building uses many very specific standards and safety codes to help ensure it remains intact during, for example, an earthquake. There are windows made with tempered or heat-stained glass for increased flexibility and some for resistance to impact. From the manufacturing of doors to light fixtures, building components must adhere to relevant standards which in turn are referenced in government guidelines and regulations.

“It’s very important that we have standards in our country to help regulate the fabrication of such (glass) products,” says Richard Verdon, president of the Canadian Glass Association and a sales agent representing various building products.

According to Verdon, most glazing companies use specific guidelines when making glass products such as windows, doors and sidelights for buildings.

“From travelling across Canada, pretty much everybody has the same way of making glass… depending on what the application is, from laminated to heat-stain. Everybody goes according to the same standards,” says Verdon. The use of proper tempered-laminated glass windows and doors, he adds, can help reduce the amount of potential harm from structural damage to a building.

The National Building Code of Canada (NBC) provides the guidelines for building construction in Canada. It is written to help ensure that buildings are structurally sound, safe from fire, free of health hazards, accessible and have minimum safety requirements regarding environmental separation. Part 4 of the Code, which covers structural design, provides specifics on adherence for design loads to address events classified as natural disasters.

“As with all materials addressed by the NBC, structural glass products must meet certain minimum performance levels when subjected to design wind loads, snow loads, earthquake loads and effects to ensure minimum levels of safety for occupants,” says Cathy Taraschuk, the senior technical advisor for structural design with the National Research Council.

Under the national Code, building construction in Canada must adhere to standards that outline how a building should respond relative to the size of an earthquake or to the impacts of environmental separation. Other elements such as snowfall, rain and ice are also factored into the way buildings are constructed in Canada.

“There are many Canadian standards that must be adhered to within the NBC,” says Taraschuk, adding that a complete list can be found in Table 1.3.1.2. of Division B of the national Code.

According to Taraschuk, it’s important to have national construction codes and standards to establish a level of performance for building construction and to harmonize construction standards across the country.

Although we can’t stop nature, an intricate infrastructure of standards, and assessment of conformance to those standards, referenced in regulation is especially poignant when disaster strikes. It is through the coordinated efforts of Canada’s National Standards System that the impact and potential damage from these natural disasters can be minimized.

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