After the September, 1888 earthquake centred in Hanmer caused extensive damage to the Christchurch cathedral, the government geologist, Alexander McKay was sent out to review the land damage. This …
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High demolition rates were observed in New Zealand after the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence despite the success of modern seismic design standards to achieve required performance objectives such as life safety and collapse prevention. Approximately 60% of the multi-storey reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in the Christchurch Central Business District were demolished after these earthquakes, even when only minor structural damage was present. Several factors influenced the decision of demolition instead of repair, one of them being the uncertainty of the seismic capacity of a damaged structure. To provide more insight into this topic, the investigation conducted in this thesis evaluated the residual capacity of moderately damaged RC walls and the effectiveness of repair techniques to restore the seismic performance of heavily damaged RC walls. The research outcome provided insights for developing guidelines for post-earthquake assessment of earthquake-damaged RC structures. The methodology used to conduct the investigation was through an experimental program divided into two phases. During the first phase, two walls were subjected to different types of pre-cyclic loading to represent the damaged condition from a prior earthquake, and a third wall represented a repair scenario with the damaged wall being repaired using epoxy injection and repair mortar after the pre-cyclic loading. Comparisons of these test walls to a control undamaged wall identified significant reductions in the stiffness of the damaged walls and a partial recovery in the wall stiffness achieved following epoxy injection. Visual damage that included distributed horizontal and diagonal cracks and spalling of the cover concrete did not affect the residual strength or displacement capacity of the walls. However, evidence of buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement during the pre-cyclic loading resulted in a slight reduction in strength recovery and a significant reduction in the displacement capacity of the damaged walls. Additional experimental programs from the literature were used to provide recommendations for modelling the response of moderately damaged RC walls and to identify a threshold that represented a potential reduction in the residual strength and displacement capacity of damaged RC walls in future earthquakes. The second phase of the experimental program conducted in this thesis addressed the replacement of concrete and reinforcing steel as repair techniques for heavily damaged RC walls. Two walls were repaired by replacing the damaged concrete and using welded connections to connect new reinforcing bars with existing bars. Different locations of the welded connections were investigated in the repaired walls to study the impact of these discontinuities at the critical section. No significant changes were observed in the stiffness, strength, and displacement capacity of the repaired walls compared to the benchmark undamaged wall. Differences in the local behaviour at the critical section were observed in one of the walls but did not impact the global response. The results of these two repaired walls were combined with other experimental programs found in the literature to assemble a database of repaired RC walls. Qualitative and quantitative analyses identified trends across various parameters, including wall types, damage before repair, and repair techniques implemented. The primary outcome of the database analysis was recommendations for concrete and reinforcing steel replacement to restore the strength and displacement capacity of heavily damaged RC walls.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage from the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. 158 Dyers Pass Road, roof tiles damaged".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage from the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. 158 Dyers Pass Road, roof tiles damaged".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage from the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. 30 Dyer Pass Road, Cashmere - house damage".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage from the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. 158 Dyers Pass Road, roof tiles damaged".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage from the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. 30 Dyers Pass Road, Cashmere. House damage".
Damage to the Kenton Chambers building. Diagonal cracking between the windows shows that the building has suffered major structural damage.
A photograph of damaged houses, captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Earthquake-damage to 99A and 97A Bexley Road".
Damage to the Kenton Chambers building. Diagonal cracking between the windows shows that the building has suffered major structural damage.
Damage to Lyttelton following the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Forbes' Store on Norwich Quay with a broken awning and damage visible on the brick walls. Scaffolding placed around the building since the 4 September 2010 earthquake has tumbled during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Damage to Lyttelton following the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Forbes' Store on Norwich Quay with a broken awning and damage visible on the brick walls. Scaffolding placed around the building since the 4 September 2010 earthquake has tumbled during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Damaged seating in the QEII stadium. The photographer comments, "This is the QEII stadium in Christchurch. During the 22 February earthquake the stadium was severely damaged and looks like it will be demolished. Anyone in Bay 3 would have no need of the toilet after this happened".
One portrait colour digital photograph taken on 25 February 2011 showing earthquake damage to the Catholic Church of St Joseph the Worker in Winchester Street Lyttelton. Photograph shows the main doors and roof at southern end of church. Nineteenth century stone buildings are particularly vulnerable to earthquake damage as the individual compon...
This thesis presents an assessment of historic seismic performance of the New Zealand stopbank network from the 1968 Inangahua earthquake through to the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. An overview of the types of stopbanks and the main aspects of the design and construction of earthen stopbanks was presented. Stopbanks are structures that are widely used on the banks of rivers and other water bodies to protect against the impact of flood events. Earthen stopbanks are found to be the most used for such protection measures. Different stopbank damage or failure modes that may occur due to flooding or earthquake excitation were assessed with a focus on past earthquakes internationally, and examples of these damage and failure modes were presented. Stopbank damage and assessment reports were collated from available reconnaissance literature to develop the first geospatial database of stopbank damage observed in past earthquakes in New Zealand. Damage was observed in four earthquakes over the past 50 years, with a number of earthquakes resulting in no stopbank damage. The damage database therefore focussed on the Edgecumbe, Darfield, Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes. Cracking of the crest and liquefaction-induced settlement were the most common forms of damage observed. To understand the seismic demand on the stopbank network in past earthquakes, geospatial analyses were undertaken to approximate the peak ground acceleration (PGA) across the stopbank network for ten large earthquakes that have occurred in New Zealand over the past 50 years. The relationship between the demand, represented by the peak ground acceleration (PGA) and damage is discussed and key trends identified. Comparison of the seismic demand and the distribution of damage suggested that the seismic performance of the New Zealand stopbank network has been generally good across all events considered. Although a significant length of the stopbank networks were exposed to high levels of shaking in past events, the overall damage length was a small percentage of this. The key aspect controlling performance was the performance of the underlying foundation soils and the effect of this on the stopbank structure and stability.
Natural catastrophes are increasing worldwide. They are becoming more frequent but also more severe and impactful on our built environment leading to extensive damage and losses. Earthquake events account for the smallest part of natural events; nevertheless seismic damage led to the most fatalities and significant losses over the period 1981-2016 (Munich Re). Damage prediction is helpful for emergency management and the development of earthquake risk mitigation projects. Recent design efforts focused on the application of performance-based design engineering where damage estimation methodologies use fragility and vulnerability functions. However, the approach does not explicitly specify the essential criteria leading to economic losses. There is thus a need for an improved methodology that finds the critical building elements related to significant losses. The here presented methodology uses data science techniques to identify key building features that contribute to the bulk of losses. It uses empirical data collected on site during earthquake reconnaissance mission to train a machine learning model that can further be used for the estimation of building damage post-earthquake. The first model is developed for Christchurch. Empirical building damage data from the 2010-2011 earthquake events is analysed to find the building features that contributed the most to damage. Once processed, the data is used to train a machine-learning model that can be applied to estimate losses in future earthquake events.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Extensive damage can be seen on the north-west and south-west corners of the building.
Photo of damage in Kaiapoi, taken by Compliance Enforcement, 10 September 2010.
Photo of damage in Selwyn, taken by Dan Harrison, 6 September 2010.
Damaged buildings and empty demolition sites. The building on the left has had tarpaulins placed on it to prevent weather damage to the inside of the building.
A damaged footpath in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. Two orange cones have been placed on the damaged concrete to warn people of the uneven surface.
An emergency Cabinet Meeting is being held at Parliament as reports begin to come in of the damage in Canterbury caused by this afternoon's earthquake.
The owners of more than three-thousand properties damaged by the Canterbury earthquake have been told the repair job could take nearly three years.
The Prime Minister, has promised people in Canterbury they will know next Wednesday whether they can rebuild on ground badly damaged by this month's earthquake.
The destruction of the Radio Network building in Christchurch has prompted hopes that explosive demolition could be used to bring down other earthquake-damaged buildings.
Photo of damage in Kaiapoi, taken by Compliance Enforcement, 9 September 2010.
Photo of damage in Kaiapoi, taken by Compliance Enforcement, 9 September 2010.
Photo of damage in Waimakariri, taken by Ian Heslop, 5 September 2010.
Photo of damage in Waimakariri, taken by Ian Heslop, 5 September 2010.