As part of a seismic retrofit scheme, surface bonded glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) fabric was applied to two unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings located in Christchurch, New Zealand. The unreinforced stone masonry of Christchurch Girls’ High School (GHS) and the unreinforced clay brick masonry Shirley Community Centre were retrofitted using surface bonded GFRP in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Much of the knowledge on the seismic performance of GFRP retrofitted URM was previously assimilated from laboratory-based experimental studies with controlled environments and loading schemes. The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence provided a rare opportunity to evaluate the GFRP retrofit applied to two vintage URM buildings and to document its performance when subjected to actual design-level earthquake-induced shaking. Both GFRP retrofits were found to be successful in preserving architectural features within the buildings as well as maintaining the structural integrity of the URM walls. Successful seismic performance was based on comparisons made between the GFRP retrofitted GHS building and the adjacent nonretrofitted Boys’ High School building, as well as on a comparison between the GFRP retrofitted and nonretrofitted walls of the Shirley Community Centre building. Based on detailed postearthquake observations and investigations, the GFRP retrofitted URM walls in the subject buildings exhibited negligible to minor levels of damage without delamination, whereas significant damage was observed in comparable nonretrofitted URM walls AM - Accepted Manuscript
This study is a qualitative investigation into the decision-making behaviour of commercial property owners (investors and developers) who are rebuilding in a city centre after a major disaster. In 2010/2011, Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, was a site of numerous earthquakes. The stronger earthquakes destroyed many buildings and public infrastructure in the commercial inner city. As a result, affected property owners lost all or most of their buildings, a significant proportion of which were old and in the last phase of their life span. They had to negotiate pay-outs with insurance companies and decide, once paid out, whether they should rebuild in Christchurch or sell up and invest elsewhere. The clear majority of those who decided to reinvest in and rebuild the city are ‘locals’, almost all of whom had no prior experience of property development. Thus, in a post-disaster environment, most of these property owners have transitioned from being just being passive investors to active property developers. Their experience was interpreted using primary data gathered from in-depth and semi-structured interviews with twenty-one “informed property people” who included commercial property owners; property agents or consultants; representatives of public-sector agencies and financial institutions. The study findings showed that the decision-making behaviour of property investors and developers rebuilding after a major disaster did not necessarily follow a strict financial or profit motive as prescribed in the mainstream or neo-classical economics property literature. Rather, their decision-making behaviour has been largely shaped by emotional connections and external factors associated with their immediate environment. The theoretical proposition emerging from this study is that after a major disaster, local urban property owners are faced with two choices “to stay” or “to go”. Those who decide to stay and rebuild are typically very committed individuals who have a feeling of ownership, belonging and attachment to the city in which they live and work. These are people who will often take the lead in commercial property development, proactively making decisions and seeking positive investment outcomes for themselves which in turn result in revitalised commercial urban precincts
This research is a creative exploration of transmedia’s ability to offer up a model of distribution and audience engagement for political documentary. Transmedia, as is well known, is a fluid concept. It is not restricted to the activities of the entertainment industry and its principles also reverberate in the practice of political and activist documentary projects. This practice-led research draws on data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, an independent transmedia documentary. The project explores the conditions and context of the Filipino rebuild workers who migrated to Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake in 2011. Obrero began as a film festival documentary that co-exists with two other new media iterations, each reaching its respective target audience: a web documentary, and a Facebook-native documentary. This study argues that relocating the documentary across new media spaces not only expands the narrative but also extends the fieldwork and investigation, forms like-minded publics, and affords the creation of an organised hub of information for researchers, academics and the general public. Treating documentary as research can represent a novel pathway to knowledge generation and the present case study, overall, provides an innovative model for future scholarship
The connections between walls of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings and flexible timber diaphragms are critical building components that must perform adequately before desirable earthquake response of URM buildings may be achieved. Field observations made during the initial reconnaissance and the subsequent damage surveys of clay brick URM buildings following the 2010/2011 Canterbury, New Zealand earthquakes revealed numerous cases where anchor connections joining masonry walls or parapets with roof or floor diaphragms appeared to have failed prematurely. These observations were more frequent for adhesive anchor connections than for through-bolt connections (i.e. anchorages having plates on the exterior façade of the masonry walls). Subsequently, an in-field test program was undertaken in an attempt to evaluate the performance of adhesive anchor connections between unreinforced clay brick URM walls and roof or floor diaphragm. The study consisted of a total of almost 400 anchor tests conducted in eleven existing URM buildings located in Christchurch, Whanganui and Auckland. Specific objectives of the study included the identification of failure modes of adhesive anchors in existing URM walls and the influence of the following variables on anchor load-displacement response: adhesive type, strength of the masonry materials (brick and mortar), anchor embedment depth, anchor rod diameter, overburden level, anchor rod type, quality of installation and the use of metal mesh sleeve. In addition, the comparative performance of bent anchors (installed at an angle of minimum 22.5o to the perpendicular projection from the wall surface) and anchors positioned horizontally was investigated. Observations on the performance of wall-to-diaphragm connections in the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a snapshot of the performed experimental program and the test results and a preliminary proposed pull-out capacity of adhesive anchors are presented herein http://www.confer.co.nz/nzsee/ VoR - Version of Record
Whole document is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland until Feb. 2014 The increasing scale of losses from earthquake disasters has reinforced the need for property owners to become proactive in seismic risk reduction programs. However, despite advancement in seismic design methods and legislative frameworks, building owners are often reluctant to adopt mitigation measures required to reduce earthquake losses. The magnitude of building collapses from the recent Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand shows that owners of earthquake prone buildings (EPBs) are not adopting appropriate risk mitigation measures in their buildings. Owners of EPBs are found unwilling or lack motivation to adopt adequate mitigation measures that will reduce their vulnerability to seismic risks. This research investigates how to increase the likelihood of building owners undertaking appropriate mitigation actions that will reduce their vulnerability to earthquake disaster. A sequential two-phase mixed methods approach was adopted for the research investigation. Multiple case studies approach was adopted in the first qualitative phase, followed by the second quantitative research phase that includes the development and testing of a framework. The research findings reveal four categories of critical obstacles to building owners‘ decision to adopt earthquake loss prevention measures. These obstacles include perception, sociological, economic and institutional impediments. Intrinsic and extrinsic interventions are proposed as incentives for overcoming these barriers. The intrinsic motivators include using information communication networks such as mass media, policy entrepreneurs and community engagement in risk mitigation. Extrinsic motivators comprise the use of four groups of incentives namely; financial, regulatory, technological and property market incentives. These intrinsic and extrinsic interventions are essential for enhancing property owners‘ decisions to voluntarily adopt appropriate earthquake mitigation measures. The study concludes by providing specific recommendations that earthquake risk mitigation managers, city councils and stakeholders involved in risk mitigation in New Zealand and other seismic risk vulnerable countries could consider in earthquake risk management. Local authorities could adopt the framework developed in this study to demonstrate a combination of incentives and motivators that yield best-valued outcomes. Consequently, actions can be more specific and outcomes more effective. The implementation of these recommendations could offer greater reasons for the stakeholders and public to invest in building New Zealand‘s built environment resilience to earthquake disasters
The connections between walls of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings and flexible timber diaphragms are critical building components that must perform adequately before desirable earthquake response of URM buildings may be achieved. Field observations made during the initial reconnaissance and the subsequent damage surveys of clay brick URM buildings following the 2010/2011 Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquakes revealed numerous cases where anchor connections joining masonry walls or parapets with roof or floor diaphragms appeared to have failed prematurely. These observations were more frequent for adhesive anchor connections than for through-bolt connections (i.e., anchorages having plates on the exterior facade of the masonry walls). Subsequently, an in-field test program was undertaken in an attempt to evaluate the performance of adhesive anchor connections between unreinforced clay brick URM walls and roof or floor diaphragm. The study consisted of a total of almost 400 anchor tests conducted in eleven existing URM buildings located in Christchurch, Whanganui and Auckland. Specific objectives of the study included the identification of failure modes of adhesive anchors in existing URM walls and the influence of the following variables on anchor load-displacement response: adhesive type, strength of the masonry materials (brick and mortar), anchor embedment depth, anchor rod diameter, overburden level, anchor rod type, quality of installation, and the use of metal mesh sleeves. In addition, the comparative performance of bent anchors (installed at an angle of minimum 22.5° to the perpendicular projection from the wall surface) and anchors positioned horizontally was investigated. Observations on the performance of wall-to-diaphragm connections in the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a summary of the performed experimental program and test results, and a proposed pull-out capacity relationship for adhesive anchors installed into multi-leaf clay brick masonry are presented herein AM - Accepted Manuscript
The skills agenda has grown in prominence within the construction industry. Indeed, skill shortages have been recognised as a perennial problem the construction industry faces, especially after a major disaster. In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes, small and medium construction companies were at the forefront of rebuilding efforts. While the survival of these companies was seen to be paramount, and extreme events were seen to be a threat to survival, there is a dearth of research centring on their resourcing capacity following a disaster. This research aims to develop workforce resourcing best practice guidelines for subcontractors in response to large disaster reconstruction demands. By using case study methods, this research identified the challenges faced by subcontracting businesses in resourcing Christchurch recovery projects; identified the workforce resourcing strategies adopted by subcontracting businesses in response to reconstruction demand; and developed a best practice guideline for subcontracting businesses in managing the workforce at the organisational and/or project level. This research offers a twofold contribution. First, it provides an overview of workforce resourcing practices in subcontracting businesses. This understanding has enabled the development of a more practical workforce resourcing guideline for subcontractors. Second, it promotes evidence-informed decision-making in subcontractors’ workforce resourcing. Dynamics in workforce resourcing and their multifaceted interactions were explicitly depicted in this research. More importantly, this research provides a framework to guide policy development in producing a sustainable solution to skill shortages and establishing longterm national skill development initiatives. Taken together, this research derives a research agenda that maps under-explored areas relevant for further elaboration and future research. Prospective researchers can use the research results in identifying gaps and priority areas in relation to workforce resourcing
The increasing prevalence of mixed-material buildings that combine concrete walls and steel frames in New Zealand, coupled with a lack of specific design and detailing guidelines for concrete wall-steel beam connections, underscores the need for comprehensive research to ensure that these structures behave as intended during earthquakes. Bolted web plate connections, commonly found in steel framing systems, are typically used to connect steel beams to concrete walls. These connections are idealised as pinned during design. However, research on steel framing systems has shown that these connections can develop significant stiffness and moment resistance when subjected to large rotations during seismic loading, potentially leading to brittle failure when used in concrete wall to steel beam applications. This thesis was written to understand the seismic performance of concrete wall-steel beam bolted web plate connections, providing experimental evidence, numerical modelling insights, and design recommendations to address critical gaps in current design practices. The study is divided into three phases. First, a review of 50 concrete wall-steel frame buildings in Auckland and Christchurch was conducted to understand current design practices and typical connection details. The findings revealed significant variation in design and detailing practices and a lack of specific guidelines for concrete wall-steel beam connections. Second, an experimental programme was conducted on four full-scale concrete wall-steel beam sub-assemblages, each incorporating variations in connection detailing. The tests were designed to quantify the rotation capacity of concrete wall-steel beam connections, identify failure modes and investigate the effectiveness of potential connection improvements. Results demonstrated that concrete wall-steel beam bolted web plate connections designed using current design standards and following existing practices are vulnerable to non-ductile failure characterised by concrete breakout. However, using slotted holes in the web plate and bent reinforcing bar anchors instead of headed stud anchors improved connection rotation capacity. Third, a numerical model of a case study building was developed on OpenSeesPy, with different connection conditions assumed based on the experimental results. Pushover and time history analyses were conducted to evaluate the implications of different connection conditions (pinned vs non-pinned) on global building response and local member demands. The findings revealed that using non-pinned connection conditions does not significantly affect the global building response and shear and bending moment demands on lateral load-resisting elements. However, doing so generates overstrength moments on the connections that induce different actions on out-of-plane concrete walls connected to steel beams. Synthesising findings from all three phases, this thesis concludes with a proposed design procedure for concrete wall-steel beam connections based on a capacity design approach to ensure ductile failure modes and suppress brittle ones. Key recommendations include selecting appropriate bolt hole geometry and anchorage, providing sufficient rotation capacity, and accounting for connection overstrength in global analyses
