Search

found 141 results

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This thesis describes the strategies for earthquake strengthening vintage clay bricks unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. URM buildings are well known to be vulnerable to damage from earthquake-induced lateral forces that may result in partial or full building collapse. The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes are the most recent destructive natural disaster that resulted in the deaths of 185 people. The earthquake events had drawn people’s attention when URM failure and collapse caused about 39 of the fatality. Despite the poor performance of URM buildings during the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a number of successful case study buildings were identified and their details research in-depth. In order to discover the successful seismic retrofitting techniques, two case studies of retrofitted historical buildings located in Christchurch, New Zealand i.e. Orion’s URM substations and an iconic Heritage Hotel (aka Old Government Building) was conducted by investigating and evaluating the earthquake performance of the seismic retrofitting technique applied on the buildings prior to the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes and their performance after the earthquakes sequence. The second part of the research reported in this thesis was directed with the primary aim of developing a cost-effective seismic retrofitting technique with minimal interference to the vintage clay-bricks URM buildings. Two retrofitting techniques, (i) near-surface mounted steel wire rope (NSM-SWR) with further investigation on URM wallettes to get deeper understanding the URM in-plane behaviour, and (ii) FRP anchor are reported in this research thesis.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Silver Award presented to Jason Pemberton, originally from the USA. Pictured here with Vice-Chancellor Dr Rod Carr, Prime Minister John Key and Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Gerry Brownlee.

Videos, UC QuakeStudies

A video of interviews with four enterprising young Christchurch residents recorded two years after the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The video includes interviews with Gap Filler Director Coralie Winn, Arts Centre Director Andrew Lovatt, artist Mike Hewson, and Student Volunteer Army leader Jason Pembleton. The interviewees are asked four questions: 'What do you think Christchurch city centre will look like in 10 years?', 'What do you most want to see in the new city?', 'What do you miss most about the old city?', and 'What keeps you in Christchurch?'.