The front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the front wall to limit further damage.
The front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the front wall to limit further damage.
The front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the front wall to limit further damage.
A view down Worcester Boulevard. Steel bracing against Our City O-Tautahi can be seen. The Cathedral can be seen at the end of the street and the Clarendon Tower on the right.
A hydraulic excavator on Kilmore Street, lifting a steel beam over a hole in the ground. The area is fenced off by wire fencing and there are road cones across the street.
Heavy steel bracing holding up the clock tower on the Worcester Street side of the Arts Centre. Wire fencing has been placed along the road in order to cordon off the building.
A multi-disciplinary geo-structural-environmental engineering project funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is being carried out at the University of Canterbury. The project aims at developing an eco-friendly seismic isolation foundation system which will improve the seismic performance of medium-density low-rise buildings. Such system is characterized by two main elements: 1) granulated scrap rubber mixed with gravelly soils to be placed beneath the structure, with the goal damping part of the seismic energy before it reaches the superstructure; and 2) a basement raft made of steel-fibre reinforced rubberised concrete (SFRRuC) to enhance the flexibility and toughness of the foundation, looking at better accommodating the displacement demand. In this paper, the main objectives, scope and methodology of the project will be briefly described. A literature review of the engineering properties of steel-fibre reinforced rubberised concrete (RuC) will be presented. Then, preliminary results on concrete mixes with different rubber and steel fibres content will be exhibited.
This paper presents preliminary field observations on the performance of selected steel structures in Christchurch during the earthquake series of 2010 to 2011. This comprises 6 damaging earthquakes, on 4 September and 26 December 2010, February 22, June 6 and two on June 13, 2011. Most notable of these was the 4 September event, at Ms7.1 and MM7 (MM as observed in the Christchurch CBD) and most intense was the 22 February event at Ms6.3 and MM9-10 within the CBD. Focus is on performance of concentrically braced frames, eccentrically braced frames, moment resisting frames and industrial storage racks. With a few notable exceptions, steel structures performed well during this earthquake series, to the extent that inelastic deformations were less than what would have been expected given the severity of the recorded strong motions. Some hypotheses are formulated to explain this satisfactory performance. http://db.nzsee.org.nz/SpecialIssue/44%284%290297.pdf
A photograph of a flight of concrete stairs salvaged from a building and placed in a car park in the Christchurch central city. Steel reinforcement can be seen sticking out of the concrete.
The Empire Hotel on London Street in Lyttelton with heavy steel bracing holding up the facade. Bricks from the side wall have collapsed on to the footpath and wire fencing encloses the site.
A photograph of workers in a cherry picking installing steel bracing on the Colombo Street face of the former Sydenham Post Office. Wire fencing has been placed around the building as a cordon.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Stephen Mateer (left) and James Gurnsey of the Lyttelton Coffee Company, who are thankful that they recently earthquake-strengthened their busy Lyttelton Cafe - see the steel beams behind them".
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 close up of the damaged stonework of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the wall to limit further damage.
A close up of the front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the front wall to limit further damage.
A close up of the damaged stonework of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the wall to limit further damage.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
A close up of the front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the wall to limit further damage.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
The damaged cathedral is supported with steel bracing and cordoned off with fencing and barriers. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
Damage to St John the Baptist Church in Latimer Square, where stone blocks have fallen and a steel bracing has been put in front to prevent any future damage. Photographed through the cordon fence.
In recent years, rocking isolation has become an effective approach to improve seismic performance of steel and reinforced concrete structures. These systems can mitigate structural damage through rigid body displacement and thus relatively low requirements for structural ductility, which can significantly improve seismic resilience of structures and reduce repairing costs after strong earthquakes. A number of base rocking structural systems with only a single rocking interface have been proposed. However, these systems can have significant high mode effect for high rise structures due to the single rocking interface. This RObust BUilding SysTem (ROBUST) project is a collaborative China-New Zealand project sponsored by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE), Tongji University, and a number of agencies and universities within New Zealand including the BRANZ, Comflor, Earthquake Commission, HERA, QuakeCoRE, QuakeCentre, University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury. A number of structural configurations will be tested [1, 2], and non-structural elements including ceilings, infilling walls, glazed curtain walls, precast concrete panels, piping system will also be tested in this project [3]. Within this study, a multiple rocking column steel structural system was proposed and investigated mainly by Tongji team with assistance of NZ members. The concept of rocking column system initiates from the structure of Chinese ancient wooden pagoda. In some of Chinese wooden pagodas, there are continuous core columns hanged only at the top of each pagoda, which is not connected to each stories. This core column can effectively avoid collapse of the whole structure under large storey drifts. Likewise, there are also central continuous columns in the newly proposed steel rocking column system, which can avoid weak story failure mechanism and make story drifts more uniform. In the proposed rocking column system, the structure can switch between an elastic rigidly connected moment resisting frame and a controlled rocking column system when subjected to strong ground motion excitations. The main seismic energy can be dissipated by asymmetric friction beam–column connections, thereby effectively reducing residual displacement of the structure under seismic loading without causing excessive damage to structural members. Re–centering of the structure is provided not only by gravity load carried by rocking columns, but also by mould coil springs. To investigate dynamic properties of the proposed system under different levels of ground excitations, a full-scale threestory steel rocking column structural system with central continuous columns is to be tested using the International joint research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE) facilities, Shanghai, China and an analytical model is established. A finite element model is also developed using ABAQUS to simulate the structural dynamic responses. The rocking column system proposed in this paper is shown to produce resilient design with quick repair or replacement.
A photograph of workers in a cherry picking installing steel bracing on the Colombo Street face of the former Sydenham Post Office. A large crack can be seen in the side of the building.
A tent on Worcester Street set up for the soldiers stationed around the cordon. In the background, the damaged Our City O-Tautahi Building can be seen with steel bracing holding up the front.
A digitally manipulated photograph of twisted reinforcing rods amongst the rubble from the demolition of QEII. The photographer comments, "These rarely seen worms live in the pressurised earth under the foundations of buildings. They need a damp soil and be under at least 100 pounds of pressure per square inch. After the destructive force of an earthquake they swiftly rise to the surface through gaps in the rubble. Unfortunately they quickly die and then crystallise as hard as iron in the dry low pressure air".
Shaking table testing of a full-scale three storey resilient and reparable complete composite steel framed building system is being conducted. The building incorporates a number of interchangeable seismic resisting systems of New Zealand and Chinese origin. The building has a steel frame and cold formed steel-concrete composite deck. Energy is dissipated by means of friction connections. These connections are arranged in a number of structural configurations. Typical building nonskeletal elements (NSEs) are also included. Testing is performed on the Jiading Campus shaking table at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. This RObust BUilding SysTem (ROBUST) project is a collaborative China-New Zealand project sponsored by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE), Tongji University, and a number of agencies and universities within New Zealand including BRANZ, Comflor, Earthquake Commission, HERA, QuakeCoRE, QuakeCentre, University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury. This paper provides a general overview of the project describing a number of issues encountered in the planning of this programme including issues related to international collaboration, the test plan, and technical issues.
The front of Christ Church Cathedral. The upper part of the front wall has crumbled leaving the inside space exposed. Steel bracing has been placed against the wall to limit further damage. The Citizens' Memorial statue stands to the left.