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Images, UC QuakeStudies

The corner of Colombo Street and Kilmore Street in the aftermath of the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The walls of several buildings along Colombo Street have collapsed, including Sala Thai Restaurant, which has spilled bricks onto the road. A bus has stopped alongside the building and police officers can be seen walking along the road.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

The facade of the building housing the Daily Bagel and the Covent Fruit Centre has fallen away, leaving the building unstable and dangerous. The front wall has toppled onto the footpath leaving a pile of bricks. The front windows of this and surrounding buildings have been spray-painted with USAR codes 'No Go' and the times they were checked.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of an empty building site on the corner of Lichfield Street and Madras Street. A mural commissioned by Gap Filler titled 'Knit Happens' has been painted on the brick wall in the corner of the remaining buildings.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

New Zealand’s stock of unreinforced masonry (URM) bearing wall buildings was principally constructed between 1880 and 1935, using fired clay bricks and lime or cement mortar. These buildings are particularly vulnerable to horizontal loadings such as those induced by seismic accelerations, due to a lack of tensile force-resisting elements in their construction. The poor seismic performance of URM buildings was recently demonstrated in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, where a large number of URM buildings suffered irreparable damage and resulted in a significant number of fatalities and casualties. One of the predominant failure modes that occurs in URM buildings is diagonal shear cracking of masonry piers. This diagonal cracking is caused by earthquake loading orientated parallel to the wall surface and typically generates an “X” shaped crack pattern due to the reversed cyclic nature of earthquake accelerations. Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) is a class of fiber reinforced cement composite that exhibits a strain-hardening characteristic when loaded in tension. The tensile characteristics of ECC make it an ideal material for seismic strengthening of clay brick unreinforced masonry walls. Testing was conducted on 25 clay brick URM wallettes to investigate the increase in shear strength for a range of ECC thicknesses applied to the masonry wallettes as externally bonded shotcrete reinforcement. The results indicated that there is a diminishing return between thickness of the applied ECC overlay and the shear strength increase obtained. It was also shown that, the effectiveness of the externally bonded reinforcement remained constant for one and two leaf wallettes, but decreased rapidly for wall thicknesses greater than two leafs. The average pseudo-ductility of the strengthened wallettes was equal to 220% of that of the as-built wallettes, demonstrating that ECC shotcrete is effective at enhancing both the in-plane strength and the pseudo-ductility of URM wallettes. AM - Accepted Manuscript

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A view down London Street in Lyttelton, looking east from Canterbury Street. To the left, the damaged Volcano Cafe can be seen, with bricks from the side wall still on the road and wire fencing around the building. A road sign reading, "Road closed" has been placed in front of the street ahead.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph looking east down Cashel Street towards the intersection of Colombo Street. A section of one of the buildings on the left has collapsed and the rubble has spilled onto the street. A van has been crushed by the fallen rubble. The message, 'clear', has been spray-painted on the windscreen of the van. In the foreground signs from several shops are still on the street. There is also earthquake damage to the building on the right. Sections of this building's facade have crumbled and the bricks have spilled onto the street below, damaging the awning.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the location of the Green Room garden on Colombo Street. White picket fences have been placed around the edges of the site and a platform has been constructed in the back-right corner. Two garden plots have been sectioned off using bricks to the right and front of the site. The front plot has been planted with shrubs and grass. A path leading between the gardens up to the platform has been filled with gravel. Wire fences have been placed around the entire section as a cordon.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "The Green Room was built by Jonathan Hall and planted by Gina Payne."

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to the Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street. The gable ends of the building have collapsed, and bricks have fallen to the footpath below. The building is surrounded by security fencing. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Nunnery, Barbadoes St".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to the Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street. The gable ends of the building have collapsed, and bricks have fallen to the footpath below. The building is surrounded by security fencing. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Nunnery, Barbadoes St".

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Unreinforced masonry (URM) cavity-wall construction is a form of masonry where two leaves of clay brick masonry are separated by a continuous air cavity and are interconnected using some form of tie system. A brief historical introduction is followed by details of a survey undertaken to determine the prevalence of URM cavity-wall buildings in New Zealand. Following the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes it was observed that URM cavity-walls generally suffered irreparable damage due to a lack of effective wall restraint and deficient cavity-tie connections, combined with weak mortar strength. It was found that the original cavity-ties were typically corroded due to moisture ingress, resulting in decreased lateral loadbearing capacity of the cavity-walls. Using photographic data pertaining to Christchurch URM buildings that were obtained during post-earthquake reconnaissance, 252 cavity-walls were identified and utilised to study typical construction details and seismic performance. The majority (72%, 182) of the observed damage to URM cavity-wall construction was a result of out-of-plane type wall failures. Three types of out-of-plane wall failure were recognised: (1) overturning response, (2) one-way bending, and (3) two-way bending. In-plane damage was less widely observed (28%) and commonly included diagonal shear cracking through mortar bed joints or bricks. The collected data was used to develop an overview of the most commonly-encountered construction details and to identify typical deficiencies in earthquake response that can be addressed via the selection and implementation of appropriate mitigation interventions. http://www.journals.elsevier.com/structures

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the earthquake damage to Poplar Street taken from Tuam Street shortly after the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The road is completely covered by loose bricks and a car has been crushed. To the left, the corner of a building has collapsed, rubble falling into the street.