Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Former Druids Building, 239 Manchester Street".
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people.
Axial elongation of reinforced concrete (RC) plastic hinges has previously been observed in a range of laboratory experiments, and more recently was observed in several Christchurch buildings following the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes. Axial restraint to plastic hinges is provided by adjacent structural components such as floors as the plastic hinges elongate, which can significantly alter the performance of the plastic hinge and potentially invalidate the capacity design strength hierarchy of the building. Coupling beams in coupled wall systems are particularly susceptible to axial restraint effects due to their importance in the strength hierarchy, the high ductility demands that they experience, and the large stiffness of bounding walls. From computational modelling it has been found that ignoring axial restraint effects when designing coupled walls can result in significantly increased strength, reduced ductility and reduced energy dissipation capacity. The complexity of the topic merits further research to better account for realistic restraint effects when designing coupled walls.
Bracing made of steel beams and concrete blocks that has been applied to the wall of St John the Baptist Church in Latimer Square.
The ceiling of the 10 square metre office building, soon to be Gap Filler Headquarters. Metal bracing can be seen between the wooden beams.
A photograph of the former Theatre Royal on Gloucester Street, next to the new Press Building. Wooden beams have been placed under the awning for support.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "About the largest piece of the roof beams with its steel brace, lying on the footpath - Durham Street Methodist Church".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Colombo Street bridge, badly damaged in the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The large steel beams supporting the bridge are distorted".
A hydraulic excavator on Kilmore Street, lifting a steel beam over a hole in the ground. The area is fenced off by wire fencing and there are road cones across the street.
The MedLab building on Kilmore Street. Many of the windows are open or have been broken. Inside, ceiling tiles are missing and swaths of fabric hang from concrete beams.
The Oxford Terrace Baptist Church showing severe cracks in its facade. Metal beams have been used to prop up the building and its base is enclosed by a safety fence.
A photograph of the new Press Building on Gloucester Street under construction. To the right, the former Theatre Royal can be seen with wooden beams placed under the awning for support.
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people. Behind them smoke is billowing from the remains of the building.
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people. Behind them smoke is billowing from the remains of the building.
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people. Behind them smoke is billowing from the remains of the building.
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people. Behind them smoke is billowing from the remains of the building.
Emergency personnel lifting a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street during their search for trapped people. Behind them smoke is billowing from the remains of the building.
A construction worker using a saw to cut through a metal beam from the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building. Smoke is billowing from the ruins, which were still partly on fire when the photograph was taken.
A view across London Street in Lyttelton to the Empire Hotel and the Lyttelton Bakery. The buildings have been cordoned off by a safety fence and the facade of the Empire Hotel has been braced with steel beams.
Emergency personnel sliding a metal beam down a sheet of corrugated plastic on the collapsed Canterbury Television Building. Smoke is billowing from the ruins, which were still partly on fire when the photograph was taken.
Looking through the cordon fence on Worcester Boulevard towards the Cathedral. Beams propping up Our City are visible on the left, and the dome of the Regent Theatre, removed and placed on the ground to protect it from further damage, is in front of the Cathedral.
Water has swept grit and splinters of wood onto the footpath outside the Durham Street Methodist Church. In the background of the photograph a piece of one of the church's roof beams with its steel brace can be seen.
A view across London Street in Lyttelton to the Empire Hotel and the Lyttelton Bakery. The buildings have been cordoned off by a safety fence. Sections of the side wall of the Empire Hotel have crumbled and its facade has been braced with steel beams.
The top of a corner tower from St John the Baptist Church in Latimer Square that has been set between two buttresses at the church's base. Bracing made of steel beams and concrete blocks can be seen fixed to the wall on the right of the photograph.
Damage to the Crichton Cobbers Youth and Community Club. Large sections of the brick walls have collapsed, and two large beams lie across the rubble. Cordon fencing surrounds this and nearby buildings. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Old brewery, later a gym - Fitzgerald Ave".
Damage to the Crichton Cobbers Youth and Community Club. Large sections of the brick walls have collapsed, and two large beams lie across the rubble. Cordon fencing surrounds this and nearby buildings. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Old brewery, later a gym - Fitzgerald Ave".
Members of the New Zealand police shifting a wooden beam from the ruins of the collapsed Canterbury Television Building in the aftermath of the 22 February 2011 earthquake. One of the New Zealand Police members has put on a bicycle helmet as protection. Around them, emergency personnel are searching the rubble for trapped people.
A photograph looking into the basement of the Copthorne Hotel. Rolls of carpet and chairs are sitting in a pool of water. To the left there is damage to one of the concrete beams. A section of the concrete has crumbled, exposing the steel reinforcement underneath.
A review of the literature showed the lack of a truly effective damage avoidance solution for timber or hybrid timber moment resisting frames (MRFs). Full system damage avoidance selfcentring behaviour is difficult to achieve with existing systems due to damage to the floor slab caused by beam-elongation. A novel gravity rocking, self-centring beam-column joint with inherent and supplemental friction energy dissipation is proposed for low-medium rise buildings in all seismic zones where earthquake actions are greater than wind. Steel columns and timber beams are used in the hybrid MRF such that both the beam and column are continuous thus avoiding beam-elongation altogether. Corbels on the columns support the beams and generate resistance and self-centring through rocking under the influence of gravity. Supplemental friction sliders at the top of the beams resist sliding of the floor whilst dissipating energy as the floor lifts on the corbels and returns. 1:20 scale tests of 3-storey one-by-two bay building based on an earlier iteration of the proposed concept served as proof-of-concept and highlighted areas for improvement. A 1:5 scale 3-storey one-by-one bay building was subsequently designed. Sub-assembly tests of the beam-top asymmetric friction sliders demonstrated repeatable hysteresis. Quasi-static tests of the full building demonstrated a ‘flat bottomed’ flag-shaped hysteresis. Shake table tests to a suite of seven earthquakes scaled for Wellington with site soil type D to the serviceability limit state (SLS), ultimate limit state (ULS) and maximum credible event (MCE) intensity corresponding to an average return period of 25, 500 and 2500 years respectively were conducted. Additional earthquake records from the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquakes we included. A peak drift of 0.6%, 2.5% and 3.8% was reached for the worst SLS, ULS and MCE earthquake respectively whereas a peak drift of 4.5% was reached for the worst Christchurch record for tests in the plane of the MRF. Bi-directional tests were also conducted with the building oriented at 45 degrees on the shake table and the excitation factored by 1.41 to maintain the component in the direction of the MRF. Shear walls with friction slider hold-downs which reached similar drifts to the MRF were provided in the orthogonal direction. Similar peak drifts were reached by the MRF in the bi-directional tests, when the excitation was amplified as intended. The building self-centred with a maximum residual drift of 0.06% in the dynamic tests and demonstrated no significant damage. The member actions were magnified by up to 100% due to impact upon return of the floor after uplift when the peak drift reached 4.5%. Nonetheless, all of the members and connections remained essentially linearelastic. The shake table was able to produce a limited peak velocity of 0.275 m/s and this limited the severity of several of the ULS, MCE and Christchurch earthquakes, especially the near-field records with a large velocity pulse. The full earthquakes with uncapped velocity were simulated in a numerical model developed in SAP2000. The corbel supports were modelled with the friction isolator link element and the top sliders were modelled with a multi-linear plastic link element in parallel with a friction spring damper. The friction spring damper simulated the increase in resistance with increasing joint rotation and a near zero return stiffness, as exhibited by the 1:5 scale test building. A good match was achieved between the test quasi-static global force-displacement response and the numerical model, except a less flat unloading curve in the numerical model. The peak drift from the shake table tests also matched well. Simulations were also run for the full velocity earthquakes, including vertical ground acceleration and different floor imposed load scenarios. Excessive drift was predicted by the numerical model for the full velocity near-field earthquakes at the MCE intensity and a rubber stiffener for increasing the post joint-opening stiffness was found to limit the drift to 4.8%. Vertical ground acceleration had little effect on the global response. The system generates most of its lateral resistance from the floor weight, therefore increasing the floor imposed load increased the peak drift, but less than it would if the resistance of the system did not increase due to the additional floor load. A seismic design procedure was discussed under the framework of the existing direct displacement-based design method. An expression for calculating the area-based equivalent viscous damping (EVD) was derived and a conservative correction factor of 0.8 was suggested. A high EVD of up to about 15% can be achieved with the proposed system at high displacement ductility levels if the resistance of the top friction sliders is maximised without compromising reliable return of the floor after uplift. Uniform strength joints with an equal corbel length up the height of the building and similar inter-storey drifts result in minimal relative inter-floor uplift, except between the first floor and ground. Guidelines for detailing the joint for damage avoidance including bi-directional movement were also developed.
Reinforced concrete buildings that satisfied modern seismic design criteria generally behaved as expected during the recent Canterbury and Kaikoura earthquakes in New Zealand, forming plastic hinges in intended locations. While this meant that life-safety performance objectives were met, widespread demolition and heavy economic losses took place in the aftermath of the earthquakes.The Christchurch central business district was particularly hard hit, with over 60% of the multistorey reinforced concrete buildings being demolished. A lack of knowledge on the post-earthquake residual capacity of reinforced concrete buildings was a contributing factor to the mass demolition.Many aspects related to the assessment of earthquake-damaged reinforced concrete buildings require further research. This thesis focusses on improving the state of knowledge on the post earthquakeresidual capacity and reparability of moderately damaged plastic hinges, with an emphasis on plastic hinges typical of modern moment frame structures. The repair method focussed on is epoxy injection of cracks and patching of spalled concrete. A targeted test program on seventeen nominally identical large-scale ductile reinforced concrete beams, three of which were repaired by epoxy injection following initial damaging loadings, was conducted to support these objectives. Test variables included the loading protocol, the loading rate, and the level of restraint to axial elongation.The information that can be gleaned from post-earthquake damage surveys is investigated. It is shown that residual crack widths are dependent on residual deformations, and are not necessarily indicative of the maximum rotation demands or the plastic hinge residual capacity. The implications of various other types of damage typical of beam and column plastic hinges are also discussed.Experimental data are used to demonstrate that the strength and deformation capacity of plastic hinges with modern seismic detailing are often unreduced as a result of moderate earthquake induced damage, albeit with certain exceptions. Special attention is given to the effects of prior yielding of the longitudinal reinforcement, accounting for the low-cycle fatigue and strain ageing phenomena. A material-level testing program on the low-cycle fatigue behaviour of grade 300E reinforcing steel was conducted to supplement the data available in the literature.A reduction in stiffness, relative to the initial secant stiffness to yield, occurs due to moderate plastic hinging damage. This reduction in stiffness is shown to be correlated with the ductility demand,and a proposed model gives a conservative lower-bound estimate of the residual stiffness following an arbitrary earthquake-type loading. Repair by epoxy injection is shown to be effective in restoring the majority of stiffness to plastic hinges in beams. Epoxy injection is also shown to have implications for the residual strength and elongation characteristics of repaired plastic hinges.