Removal of the earthquake damaged footbridge over the Avon at Medway Street. Tuesday 12 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-12-untitled4.bmp From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
This has made a huge mess for the residents to clean up. I heard on the news that homes have been damaged by subsidence in areas of earthquake-caused liquefaction like this.
The recent instances of seismic activity in Canterbury (2010/11) and Kaikōura (2016) in New Zealand have exposed an unexpected level of damage to non-structural components, such as buried pipelines and building envelope systems. The cost of broken buried infrastructure, such as pipeline systems, to the Christchurch Council was excessive, as was the cost of repairing building envelopes to building owners in both Christchurch and Wellington (due to the Kaikōura earthquake), which indicates there are problems with compliance pathways for both of these systems. Councils rely on product testing and robust engineering design practices to provide compliance certification on the suitability of product systems, while asset and building owners rely on the compliance as proof of an acceptable design. In addition, forensic engineers and lifeline analysts rely on the same product testing and design techniques to analyse earthquake-related failures or predict future outcomes pre-earthquake, respectively. The aim of this research was to record the actual field-observed damage from the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes of seismic damage to buried pipeline and building envelope systems, develop suitable testing protocols to be able to test the systems’ seismic resilience, and produce prediction design tools that deliver results that reflect the collected field observations with better accuracy than the present tools used by forensic engineers and lifeline analysts. The main research chapters of this thesis comprise of four publications that describe the gathering of seismic damage to pipes (Publication 1 of 4) and building envelopes (Publication 2 of 4). Experimental testing and the development of prediction design tools for both systems are described in Publications 3 and 4. The field observation (discussed in Publication 1 of 4) revealed that segmented pipe joints, such as those used in thick-walled PVC pipes, were particularly unsatisfactory with respect to the joint’s seismic resilience capabilities. Once the joint was damaged, silt and other deleterious material were able to penetrate the pipeline, causing blockages and the shutdown of key infrastructure services. At present, the governing Standards for PVC pipes are AS/NZS 1477 (pressure systems) and AS/NZS 1260 (gravity systems), which do not include a protocol for evaluating the PVC pipes for joint seismic resilience. Testing methodologies were designed to test a PVC pipe joint under various different simultaneously applied axial and transverse loads (discussed in Publication 3 of 4). The goal of the laboratory experiment was to establish an easy to apply testing protocol that could fill the void in the mentioned standards and produce boundary data that could be used to develop a design tool that could predict the observed failures given site-specific conditions surrounding the pipe. A tremendous amount of building envelope glazing system damage was recorded in the CBDs of both Christchurch and Wellington, which included gasket dislodgement, cracked glazing, and dislodged glazing. The observational research (Publication 2 of 4) concluded that the glazing systems were a good indication of building envelope damage as the glazing had consistent breaking characteristics, like a ballistic fuse used in forensic blast analysis. The compliance testing protocol recognised in the New Zealand Building Code, Verification Method E2/VM1, relies on the testing method from the Standard AS/NZS 4284 and stipulates the inclusion of typical penetrations, such as glazing systems, to be included in the test specimen. Some of the building envelope systems that failed in the recent New Zealand earthquakes were assessed with glazing systems using either the AS/NZS 4284 or E2/VM1 methods and still failed unexpectedly, which suggests that improvements to the testing protocols are required. An experiment was designed to mimic the observed earthquake damage using bi-directional loading (discussed in Publication 4 of 4) and to identify improvements to the current testing protocol. In a similar way to pipes, the observational and test data was then used to develop a design prediction tool. For both pipes (Publication 3 of 4) and glazing systems (Publication 4 of 4), experimentation suggests that modifying the existing testing Standards would yield more realistic earthquake damage results. The research indicates that including a specific joint testing regime for pipes and positioning the glazing system in a specific location in the specimen would improve the relevant Standards with respect to seismic resilience of these systems. Improving seismic resilience in pipe joints and glazing systems would improve existing Council compliance pathways, which would potentially reduce the liability of damage claims against the government after an earthquake event. The developed design prediction tool, for both pipe and glazing systems, uses local data specific to the system being scrutinised, such as local geology, dimensional characteristics of the system, actual or predicted peak ground accelerations (both vertically and horizontally) and results of product-specific bi-directional testing. The design prediction tools would improve the accuracy of existing techniques used by forensic engineers examining the cause of failure after an earthquake and for lifeline analysts examining predictive earthquake damage scenarios.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "25 Seabreeze Close, Bexley. View through the window shows the crack in the floor slab, and a pile of silt in the corner of the room".
Oxford Terrace Baptist Church on the corner of Madras St and Oxford Terrace, and alongside the Central City Fire Station on Kilmore St.
I didn't even know the bookshelf had fallen on me till later that morning. When I saw the bookcase and books all over the bed, I was glad to be only 5 foot tall or my legs would have been crushed by sturdy books like 'A day in the life of the Soviet Union' and some thumping big art books, or even the cheapo board bookcase with half its shelves...
Members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue breaking through the floor of a building which was severely damaged during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue breaking through the floor of a building which was severely damaged during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A photograph of the earthquake damage to a block of shops on Manchester Street. The top storey of the shops has collapsed and the bricks and other rubble have spilled onto the street.
A photograph of the earthquake damage to St John the Baptist Church on Hereford Street near Latimer Square. The top of the tower has crumbled, the masonry spilling onto the lawn in front.
Sally Roome talking to members of the Sumner community outside the UC QuakeBox container in Sumner. Above, the damaged cliffs can be seen with a house at the edge on a lean.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Earthquake damage to River Road in Richmond, next to the Avon River. A pipe along the footpath is being used to supply water to residents temporarily".
A photograph of a member of the Wellington Emergency Management Office Emergency Response Team taking photograph through a car window. In the distance is the earthquake-damaged tower of the ChristChurch Cathedral.
A photograph taken inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel on the corner of Kilmore and Durham Streets. Steel bracing has been used to hold up the ceiling. The column on the left is damaged.
Cars driving over the damaged Gayhurst Road Bridge. The approach to the bridge has been re-sealed, but gaps at the sides of the road show the relative movement of bridge and land.
Cars driving over the damaged Gayhurst Road Bridge. The approach to the bridge has been re-sealed, but gaps at the sides of the road show the relative movement of bridge and land.
A photograph of the earthquake damage to the windows of a souvenir shop on the corner of Gloucester and Colombo Streets. Broken glass from the windows has scattered across the footpath in front.
Damage to St John the Baptist Church in Latimer Square. Behind steel bracing, the gable end of the building has partly collapsed. The photographer comments, "The bracing did help hold the church up".
A photograph of the earthquake damage to a block of shops on Colombo Street. The top section of the shops have collapsed and the bricks have spilled onto the footpath and road below.
Sally Roome talking to members of the Sumner community outside the UC QuakeBox container in Sumner. Above, the damaged cliffs can be seen with a house at the edge on a lean.
A photograph of a crane parked in front of the earthquake-damaged ChristChurch Cathedral. The tower of the Cathedral has been partially demolished and a pile of rubble is sitting in front.
A photograph of earthquake-damaged buildings down Manchester Street. Crowds have gathered at the intersection with High Street in the distance, after evacuating their buildings during the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Rubble from the building to the left covers the road.
A digital copy of a painting by Julia Holden. The painting is of Lichfield Street, looking east from the intersection of Colombo Street. The road has been fenced off and there are damaged buildings in the background.
A photograph of the earthquake damage to the east side of the Cranmer Courts on the corner of Montreal and Kilmore Streets. The masonry of the gable has crumbled exposing the wooden structure beneath.
The damaged Provincial Council Legislative Chamber on Durham Street in the aftermath of the 22 February earthquake. The building's roof and walls have collapsed, as has the scaffolding which was erected to repair it after the 4 September earthquake.
A damaged chimney on the roof of a house in Kaiapoi. The bricks have crumbled onto the roof where they lie precariously. These will have to be removed and the rest of the chimney deconstructed by hand.
A photograph of a badly-damaged shop on Colombo Street. The front wall of the top storey of the building has crumbled into the street, exposing the inside of the building. Steel and wooden bracing is keeping the ceiling up.
St John the Baptist Church on Latimer Square. The masonry of the bell tower has crumbled onto the lawn, exposing the inside. Damage to the roof and the tip of the gable can also be seen.
An earthquake-damaged house on Acland Avenue in Avonside. Its chimneys have collapsed and have been weather proofed with tarpaulins. The overgrown garden suggests the house has been unoccupied since the 4 September 2010 earthquake.
An earthquake-damaged house on Acland Avenue in Avonside. Its chimneys have collapsed and have been weather proofed with tarpaulins. The overgrown garden suggests the house has been unoccupied since the 4 September 2010 earthquake.