Assessment of Vibration on the Strength of Hardened Concrete for Disaster Mitigation in the Rural Areas

Economic activities are increasingly growing in the rural areas. Examples of these activities are explorations, mining, constructions of roads, traffic and they are man-made activities. These activities generate a lot of ground vibrations. Though the vibration amplitudes may seem small but they build up resulting to large amplitude that can impact negatively on existing structures around. Buildings in rural areas are constructed using local aggregates because they are readily available. The local aggregate materials behave poorly in concrete and sometimes hardly attain design strength. When these buildings are affected by vibrations, some dynamic excitations are generated in the structure which can be very severe and undesirable. This research is to bring to our consciousness the impact vibration may have on the compressive strength of hardened concrete and some possible ways to mitigate against any vibration disaster in the rural areas. In carrying out the study, uncrushed fine and coarse aggregates were used for the experimental work. From the results gotten, it showed that concrete made with local aggregates may not reach their design strength and as such prone to vibration. Therefore, the need for ready-made plans in case of any emergency to minimize losses. A Non-linear regression model that can predict the compressive strength of concrete with vibration effects was developed and it gave a coefficient of determination of 0.948.