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Audio, Radio New Zealand

Topics - The Parole Board has decided that Teina Pora should be released from prison. Pora has served 21 years of a life sentence for murdering and raping Susan Burdett in Auckland in 1992. He continues to protest his innocence, and he'll appear before the Privy Council in London at the end of the year in an effort to clear his name. A coroner's report criticises almost every aspect of the Fire Service's response to the CTV building collapse that killed 115 people in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Gordon Matenga says more people, more resources, better communication and a better structure might have improved the chances of saving more lives that day.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The 2011, 6.3 magnitude Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand caused considerable structural damage. It is believed that this event has now resulted in demolition of about 65-70% of the building stock in the Central Business District (CBD), significantly crippling economic activities in the city of Christchurch. A major concern raised from this event was adequacy of the current seismic design practice adopted for reinforced concrete walls due to their poor performance in modern buildings. The relatively short-duration earthquake motion implied that the observed wall damage occurred in a brittle manner despite adopting a ductile design philosophy. This paper presents the lessons learned from the observed wall damage in the context of current state of knowledge in the following areas: concentrating longitudinal reinforcement in wall end regions; determining wall thickness to prevent out-of-plane wall buckling; avoiding lap splices in plastic hinge zones; and quantifying minimum vertical reinforcement. http://www.2eceesistanbul.org/

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Soil Liquefaction during Recent Large-Scale Earthquakes contains selected papers presented at the New Zealand – Japan Workshop on Soil Liquefaction during Recent Large-Scale Earthquakes (Auckland, New Zealand, 2-3 December 2013). The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand and the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake in Japan have caused significant damage to many residential houses due to varying degrees of soil liquefaction over a very wide extent of urban areas unseen in past destructive earthquakes. While soil liquefaction occurred in naturally-sedimented soil formations in Christchurch, most of the areas which liquefied in Tokyo Bay area were reclaimed soil and artificial fill deposits, thus providing researchers with a wide range of soil deposits to characterize soil and site response to large-scale earthquake shaking. Although these earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan caused extensive damage to life and property, they also serve as an opportunity to understand better the response of soil and building foundations to such large-scale earthquake shaking. With the wealth of information obtained in the aftermath of both earthquakes, information-sharing and knowledge-exchange are vital in arriving at liquefaction-proof urban areas in both countries. Data regarding the observed damage to residential houses as well as the lessons learnt are essential for the rebuilding efforts in the coming years and in mitigating buildings located in regions with high liquefaction potential. As part of the MBIE-JSPS collaborative research programme, the Geomechanics Group of the University of Auckland and the Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory of the University of Tokyo co-hosted the workshop to bring together researchers to review the findings and observations from recent large-scale earthquakes related to soil liquefaction and discuss possible measures to mitigate future damage. http://librarysearch.auckland.ac.nz/UOA2_A:Combined_Local:uoa_alma21151785130002091

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

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.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

The Canterbury earthquakes, which involved widespread damage in the February 2011 event and ongoing aftershocks near the Christchurch central business district (CBD), presented decision-makers with many recovery challenges. This paper identifies major government decisions, challenges, and lessons in the early recovery of Christchurch based on 23 key-informant interviews conducted 15 months after the February 2011 earthquake. It then focuses on one of the most important decisions – maintaining the cordon around the heavily damaged CBD – and investigates its impacts. The cordon displaced 50,000 central city jobs, raised questions about (and provided new opportunities for) the long-term viability of downtown, influenced the number and practice of building demolitions, and affected debris management; despite being associated with substantial losses, the cordon was commonly viewed as necessary, and provided some benefits in facilitating recovery. Management of the cordon poses important lessons for planning for catastrophic urban earthquakes around the world.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study on the resilience and recovery of organisations following the Darfield earthquake in New Zealand on 4 September 2010. Sampling included organisations proximal and distal to the fault trace, organisations located within central business districts, and organisations from seven diverse industry sectors. The research captured information on the challenges to, the impacts on, and the reflections of the organisations in the first months of recovery. Organisations in central business districts and in the hospitality sector were most likely to close while organisations that had perishable stock and livestock were more heavily reliant on critical services. Staff well-being, cash flow, and customer loss were major concerns for organisations across all sectors. For all organisations, the most helpful factors in mitigating the effects of the earthquake to be their relationship with staff, the design and type of buildings, and critical service continuity or swift reinstatement of services.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

TRACEY MARTIN to the Minister responsible for Novopay: Does he stand by his statement of 11 February 2014, "education payroll is the most complex in New Zealand and more work remains to be done to simplify the business processes to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible each year"? Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that "the true builders of that future are the millions of New Zealanders working in the homes, the businesses, the industries of our country"? MAGGIE BARRY to the Minister of Finance: What progress is the Government making with its share offer programme, which is freeing up money for reinvestment in new public assets without having to increase Government debt? ANDREW LITTLE to the Attorney-General: Will he release all correspondence between the Christchurch Crown Solicitor or any other solicitor acting for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and counsel for Peter Whittall on the decision not to proceed with the prosecution of Mr Whittall under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 relating to conditions at the Pike River Mine that lead to the deaths of 29 miners; if not, why not? KEVIN HAGUE to the Minister of Health: When were Ministry of Health officials first informed that the dispute between the Southern District Health Board and South Link Health involved allegations of the misuse of public funding, and when were they first informed that this alleged misuse was suspected to involve elements that could be fraud? Dr CAM CALDER to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: What announcements has the Government made on the Tertiary Education Strategy for New Zealand? Hon RUTH DYSON to the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission: Does he stand by his statement made yesterday in the House with regard to Canterbury Labour Members of Parliament that they "have made no more than five requests for assistance through the Earthquake Commission"; if not, when will he be correcting his statement and apologising? MARK MITCHELL to the Minister for Communications and Information Technology: How is the Government's Information and Communication Technology programme improving New Zealanders' access to improved technology and better connectivity? GRANT ROBERTSON to the Minister of Justice: On what date did she receive an invitation to visit the Shanghai office of Oravida Ltd during her Ministerial visit to China in October 2013, and what actions did she take to ensure this visit met her obligations under the Cabinet Manual? CATHERINE DELAHUNTY to the Associate Minister of Education: Did the communities in Christchurch, Auckland and Queenstown, where four schools are to be built using a public-private partnership (PPP) model, ask the Government for private sector management of their school buildings? PAUL FOSTER-BELL to the Minister of Health: What investment is the Government making in improving nutrition and exercise for pre-schoolers? JOANNE HAYES to the Minister of Corrections: What steps has the Government taken to improve access to alcohol and drug treatment for prisoners?

Research Papers, Lincoln University

The Christchurch earthquakes brought to an abrupt halt a process of adaptive reuse and gentrification that was underway in the south eastern corner of the central business district. The retail uses that were a key to the success of this area pre-earthquake could be characterised as small, owner operated, quirky, bohemian, chaotic and relatively low rent. This research reports on the progress of a long term, comprehensive case study that follows the progress of these retailers both before and after the earthquakes. Findings include the immediate post-earthquake intentions to resume business in the same location as soon as possible were thwarted by government imposed cordons of the CBD that were only lifted nearly three years later. But, businesses were resilient and generally reinvented themselves quickly in alternative suburban locations where government “rebuild” restrictions were absent. It remains to be seen if this type of retail will ever return to the CBD as government imposed plans and the rents demanded for retail space in new buildings appear to preclude small owner-operated businesses.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Recent experiences from the Darfield and Canterbury, New Zealand earthquakes have shown that the soft soil condition of saturated liquefiable sand has a profound effect on seismic response of buildings, bridges and other lifeline infrastructure. For detailed evaluation of seismic response three dimensional integrated analysis comprising structure, foundation and soil is required; such an integrated analysis is referred to as Soil Foundation Structure Interaction (SFSI) in literatures. SFSI is a three-dimensional problem because of three primary reasons: first, foundation systems are three-dimensional in form and geometry; second, ground motions are three-dimensional, producing complex multiaxial stresses in soils, foundations and structure; and third, soils in particular are sensitive to complex stress because of heterogeneity of soils leading to a highly anisotropic constitutive behaviour. In literatures the majority of seismic response analyses are limited to plane strain configuration because of lack of adequate constitutive models both for soils and structures, and computational limitation. Such two-dimensional analyses do not represent a complete view of the problem for the three reasons noted above. In this context, the present research aims to develop a three-dimensional mathematical formulation of an existing plane-strain elasto-plastic constitutive model of sand developed by Cubrinovski and Ishihara (1998b). This model has been specially formulated to simulate liquefaction behaviour of sand under ground motion induced earthquake loading, and has been well-validated and widely implemented in verifcation of shake table and centrifuge tests, as well as conventional ground response analysis and evaluation of case histories. The approach adopted herein is based entirely on the mathematical theory of plasticity and utilises some unique features of the bounding surface plasticity formalised by Dafalias (1986). The principal constitutive parameters, equations, assumptions and empiricism of the existing plane-strain model are adopted in their exact form in the three-dimensional version. Therefore, the original two-dimensional model can be considered as a true subset of the three-dimensional form; the original model can be retrieved when the tensorial quantities of the three dimensional version are reduced to that of the plane-strain configuration. Anisotropic Drucker-Prager type failure surface has been adopted for the three-dimensional version to accommodate triaxial stress path. Accordingly, a new mixed hardening rule based on Mroz’s approach of homogeneous surfaces (Mroz, 1967) has been introduced for the virgin loading surface. The three-dimensional version is validated against experimental data for cyclic torsional and triaxial stress paths.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

This is an interim report from the research study performed within the NHRP Research Project “Impacts of soil liquefaction on land, buildings and buried pipe networks: geotechnical evaluation and design, Project 3: Seismic assessment and design of pipe networks in liquefiable soils”. The work presented herein is a continuation of the comprehensive study on the impacts of Christchurch earthquakes on the buried pipe networks presented in Cubrinovski et al. (2011). This report summarises the performance of Christchurch City’s potable water, waste water and road networks through the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), and particularly focuses on the potable water network. It combines evidence based on comprehensive and well-documented data on the damage to the water network, detailed observations and interpretation of liquefaction-induced land damage, records and interpretations of ground motion characteristics induced by the Canterbury earthquakes, for a network analysis and pipeline performance evaluation using a GIS platform. The study addresses a range of issues relevant in the assessment of buried networks in areas affected by strong earthquakes and soil liquefaction. It discusses performance of different pipe materials (modern flexible pipelines and older brittle pipelines) including effects of pipe diameters, fittings and pipeline components/details, trench backfill characteristics, and severity of liquefaction. Detailed breakdown of key factors contributing to the damage to buried pipes is given with reference to the above and other relevant parameters. Particular attention is given to the interpretation, analysis and modelling of liquefaction effects on the damage and performance of the buried pipe networks. Clear link between liquefaction severity and damage rate for the pipeline has been observed with an increasing damage rate seen with increasing liquefaction severity. The approach taken here was to correlate the pipeline damage to LRI (Liquefaction Resistance Index, newly developed parameter in Cubrinovski et al., 2011) which represents a direct measure for the soil resistance to liquefaction while accounting for the seismic demand through PGA. Key quality of the adopted approach is that it provides a general methodology that in conjunction with conventional methods for liquefaction evaluation can be applied elsewhere in New Zealand and internationally. Preliminary correlations between pipeline damage (breaks km-1), liquefaction resistance (LRI) and seismic demand (PGA) have been developed for AC pipes, as an example. Such correlations can be directly used in the design and assessment of pipes in seismic areas both in liquefiable and non-liquefiable areas. Preliminary findings on the key factors for the damage to the potable water pipe network and established empirical correlations are presented including an overview of the damage to the waste water and road networks but with substantially less detail. A comprehensive summary of the damage data on the buried pipelines is given in a series of appendices.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

Though generally considered “natural” disasters, cyclones and earthquakes are increasingly being associated with human activities, incubated through urban settlement patterns and the long-term redistribution of natural resources. As society is becoming more urbanized, the risk of human exposure to disasters is also rising. Architecture often reflects the state of society’s health: architectural damage is the first visible sign of emergency, and reconstruction is the final response in the process of recovery. An empirical assessment of architectural projects in post-disaster situations can lead to a deeper understanding of urban societies as they try to rebuild. This thesis offers an alternative perspective on urban disasters by looking at the actions and attitudes of disaster professionals through the lens of architecture, situated in recent events: the 2010 Christchurch earthquake, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. An empirical, multi-hazard, cross-sectional case study methodology was used, employing grounded theory method to build theory, and a critical constructivist strategy to inform the analysis. By taking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding disasters, this thesis positions architecture as a conduit between two divergent approaches to disaster research: the hazards approach, which studies the disaster cycles from a scientific perspective; and the sociological approach, which studies the socially constructed vulnerabilities that result from disasters, and the elements of social change that accompany such events. Few studies to date have attempted to integrate the multi-disciplinary perspectives that can advance our understanding of societal problems in urban disasters. To bridge this gap, this thesis develops what will be referred to as the “Rittelian framework”—based on the work of UC Berkeley’s architecture professor Horst Rittel (1930-1990). The Rittelian framework uses the language of design to transcend the multiple fields of human endeavor to address the “design problems” in disaster research. The processes by which societal problems are addressed following an urban disaster involve input by professionals from multiple fields—including economics, sociology, medicine, and engineering—but the contribution from architecture has been minimal to date. The main impetus for my doctoral thesis has been the assertion that most of the decisions related to reconstruction are made in the early emergency recovery stages where architects are not involved, but architects’ early contribution is vital to the long-term reconstruction of cities. This precipitated in the critical question: “How does the Rittelian framework contribute to the critical design decisions in modern urban disasters?” Comparative research was undertaken in three case studies of recent disasters in New Orleans (2005), Haiti (2010) and Christchurch (2010), by interviewing 51 individuals who were selected on the basis of employing the Rittelian framework in their humanitarian practice. Contextualizing natural disaster research within the robust methodological framework of architecture and the analytical processes of sociology is the basis for evaluating the research proposition that architectural problem solving is of value in addressing the ‘Wicked Problems’ of disasters. This thesis has found that (1) the nuances of the way disaster agents interpret the notion of “building back better” can influence the extent to which architectural professionals contribute in urban disaster recovery, (2) architectural design can be used to facilitate but also impede critical design decisions, and (3) framing disaster research in terms of design decisions can lead to innovation where least expected. This empirical research demonstrates how the Rittelian framework can inform a wider discussion about post-disaster human settlements, and improve our resilience through disaster research.