TIANJIN — Tianjin University has received approval from the National Development and Reform Commission to build a large-scale earthquake simulation engineering research facility.

The facility will be used to study the impact of earthquakes on large engineering projects on land and in the sea and explore solutions to improve their abilities to withstand the impacts, said Zhong Denghua, university president and lead scientist of the project.

The project covers 77,000 square meters with an estimated investment of 1.5 billion yuan (about $220 million) and will take five years to build at the university’s Beiyangyuan Campus.

The planned facility is bigger than existing ones, said Zhong.

There are a growing number of high-rise buildings, cross-sea bridges, large hydropower stations, superlong tunnels, offshore wind power plants and large nuclear power stations in China, all which have a high demand for anti-seismic research, said Xie Lili, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Collapsing buildings have high casualty and asset losses during major quakes, so it is important to identify vulnerable parts of engineering structures and improve their ability to withstand the impacts of earthquakes, he said.