Hurricane Ivan Impact

Over­view

Struc­tures built us­ing the am-cor Sys­tem have with­stood many nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, in­clud­ing hur­ricanes, tor­nadoes, seis­mic events, fires, and floods.

The fol­low­ing pic­tures show how the am-cor Sys­tem's Ferrocement unibody stress-skin al­lowed an un­der-con­struc­tion hotel com­plex in Ja­maica to not only with with­stand Hur­ricane Ivan's 165 mph (270 km/h) winds, but also the im­pact from 1) massive ocean storm surge, and 2) large, heavy ob­jects thrown by such winds & waves.

Su­per­i­or Fer­ro­cement Struc­tures

The pic­tures be­low show an am-cor con­struc­tion site in Ja­maica, WI, hit by Hurricane Ivan, the 10th most in­tense At­lantic hur­ricane ever re­cor­ded:

• The job site was in mid-con­struc­tion when the hur­ricane hit
• This am-cor beach­side struc­ture was un­fin­ished, and was not as strong as it would be when fin­ished
• The large rock is a chunk of the sea­wall, thrown about 200' (61m) in­land from the coast, all from the force of the hur­ricane's wind & waves
• The di­men­sions of the chunk are ap­prox­im­ately 8' x 2' x 3' = 48 cu.ft. (1.4 m3)
• The sea wall chunk dam­aged a struc­tur­al bear­ing wall, which now sup­ports 2 ad­di­tion­al stor­ies

• While the im­pact of the sea­wall chunk in­den­ted the amcorite™ Ferrocement skin & bent the in­teri­or struc­tur­al mem­bers, the skin did not rup­ture
• The af­fected area was eas­ily patched, by re­mov­ing the in­den­ted skin, re­pla­cing the bent mem­bers, and re­sur­fa­cing with Ferrocement
• The weight of the chunk is es­tim­ated at 6,900 lbs. (3,130 kg), or about 3.5 US tons
• The am-cor Sys­tem's unibody stress-skin dis­trib­uted the im­pact's force throughout the in­teg­rated frame:
  • There was no single point of fail­ure (no re­li­ance on fasten­ers, joints, etc.)
  • The en­tire struc­ture res­isted the im­pact, not just a par­tic­u­lar wall sec­tion
  • If the bear­ing wall had been made of stand­ard re­in­forced con­crete block, the roof would have col­lapsed.

Con­clu­sion

The sea wall chunk hit the front bear­ing wall of an am-cor Beach­side Condo struc­ture. The chunk forced its way through the wall, tele­scop­ing the sup­port­ing studs of a bear­ing wall between two of the condo units, so that the am-cor slab roof was un­sup­por­ted. The build­ing's span was sud­denly changed from the de­signed 14 ft. span to 28 ft. The am-cor roof did not de­flect or col­lapse, prov­ing that am-cor struc­tures are struc­tur­ally re­dund­ant mono­coque shells.

Not only are am-cor Kits a smart in­vest­ment, as they eas­ily with­stand nat­ur­al dis­asters such as hur­ricanes, but they are also life-sav­ing struc­tures, and can double as lux­ury res­id­ences & dis­aster-res­ist­ant shel­ter.