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Images, eqnz.chch.2010

It's five years since the earthquake, and for the first time I feel a sense that the rebuild is taking effect. In this photo - the left hand building is on the way up, and the right hand building is on the way down.

Images, eqnz.chch.2010

It's five years since the earthquake, and for the first time I feel a sense that the rebuild is taking effect. 113/115 - Natural Framing. In the middle of the rebuild, wall murals are everywhere is Christchurch. The framing is wire fence around ballet dancer, although there is plenty of evidence of framing/boxing around the foundations.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Existing New Zealand (NZ) building stock contains a significant number of structures designed prior to 1995 with non-ductile reinforced concrete (RC) columns. Recent earthquakes and research show that columns with such details perform poorly when subjected to seismic demand, losing gravity load carrying capacity at drift levels lower than the expected one. Therefore, in order to have a better understanding of existing RC columns in NZ, the history of these elements is investigated in this paper. The evolution of RC column design guidelines in NZ standards since the 1970s is scrutinized. For this purpose, a number of RC columns from Christchurch buildings built prior to 1995 are assessed using the current code of practice.

Images, eqnz.chch.2010

Christchurch's old central city police station building will now be demolished on Sunday by implosion. Another one of Christchurch recognisable buildings to be given a death sentence following the earthquakes of 2010/2011. Photo by Geoff Trotter at www.dreamdreams.co.nz

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The Global Earthquake Model’s (GEM) Earthquake Consequences Database (GEMECD) aims to develop, for the first time, a standardised framework for collecting and collating geocoded consequence data induced by primary and secondary seismic hazards to different types of buildings, critical facilities, infrastructure and population, and relate this data to estimated ground motion intensity via the USGS ShakeMap Atlas. New Zealand is a partner of the GEMECD consortium and to-date has contributed with 7 events to the database, of which 4 are localised in the South Pacific area (Newcastle 1989; Luzon 1990; South of Java 2006 and Samoa Islands 2009) and 3 are NZ-specific events (Edgecumbe 1987; Darfield 2010 and Christchurch 2011). This contribution to GEMECD represented a unique opportunity for collating, comparing and reviewing existing damage datasets and harmonising them into a common, openly accessible and standardised database, from where the seismic performance of New Zealand buildings can be comparatively assessed. This paper firstly provides an overview of the GEMECD database structure, including taxonomies and guidelines to collect and report on earthquake-induced consequence data. Secondly, the paper presents a summary of the studies implemented for the 7 events, with particular focus on the Darfield (2010) and Christchurch (2011) earthquakes. Finally, examples of specific outcomes and potentials for NZ from using and processing GEMECD are presented, including: 1) the rationale for adopting the GEM taxonomy in NZ and any need for introducing NZ-specific attributes; 2) a complete overview of the building typological distribution in the Christchurch CBD prior to the Canterbury earthquakes and 3) some initial correlations between the level and extent of earthquake-induced physical damage to buildings, building safety/accessibility issues and the induced human casualties.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

In practice, several competing liquefaction evaluation procedures (LEPs) are used to compute factors of safety against soil liquefaction, often for use within a liquefaction potential index (LPI) framework to assess liquefaction hazard. At present, the influence of the selected LEP on the accuracy of LPI hazard assessment is unknown, and the need for LEP-specific calibrations of the LPI hazard scale has never been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of three CPT-based LEPs from the literature, operating within the LPI framework, for predicting the severity of liquefaction manifestation. Utilising more than 7000 liquefaction case studies from the 2010–2011 Canterbury (NZ) earthquake sequence, this study found that: (a) the relationship between liquefaction manifestation severity and computed LPI values is LEP-specific; (b) using a calibrated, LEP-specific hazard scale, the performance of the LPI models is essentially equivalent; and (c) the existing LPI framework has inherent limitations, resulting in inconsistent severity predictions against field observations for certain soil profiles, regardless of which LEP is used. It is unlikely that revisions of the LEPs will completely resolve these erroneous assessments. Rather, a revised index which more adequately accounts for the mechanics of liquefaction manifestation is needed.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

This thesis addresses the topic of local bond behaviour in RC structures. The mechanism of bond refers to the composite action between deformed steel reinforcing bars and the surrounding concrete. Bond behaviour is an open research topic with a wide scope, particularly because bond it is such a fundamental concept to structural engineers. However, despite many bond-related research findings having wide applications, the primary contribution of this research is an experimental evaluation of the prominent features of local bond behaviour and the associated implications for the seismic performance of RC structures. The findings presented in this thesis attempt to address some structural engineering recommendations made by the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission following the 2010-2011 Canterbury (New Zealand) earthquake sequence. A chapter of this thesis discusses the structural behaviour of flexure-dominated RC wall structures with an insufficient quantity of longitudinal reinforcement, among other in situ conditions, that causes material damage to predominantly occur at a single crack plane. In this particular case, the extent of concrete damage and bond deterioration adjacent to the crack plane will influence the ductility capacity that is effectively provided by the reinforcing steel. As a consequence of these in situ conditions, some lightly reinforced wall buildings in Christchurch lost their structural integrity due to brittle fracture of the longitudinal reinforcement. With these concerning post-earthquake observations in mind, there is the underlying intention that this thesis presents experimental evidence of bond behaviour that allows structural engineers to re-assess their confidence levels for the ability of lightly reinforced concrete structures to achieve the life-safety seismic performance objective the ultimate limit state. Three chapters of this thesis are devoted to the experimental work that was conducted as the main contribution of this research. Critical details of the experimental design, bond testing method and test programme are reported. The bond stress-slip relationship was studied through 75 bond pull-out tests. In order to measure the maximum local bond strength, all bond tests were carried out on deformed reinforcing bars that did not yield as the embedded bond length was relatively short. Bond test results have been presented in two separate chapters in which 48 monotonic bond tests and 27 cyclic bond tests are presented. Permutations of the experiments include the loading rate, cyclic loading history, concrete strength (25 to 70 MPa), concrete age, cover thickness, bar diameter (16 and 20 mm), embedded length, and position of the embedded bond region within the specimen (close or far away to the free surface). The parametric study showed that the concrete strength significantly influences the maximum bond strength and that it is reasonable to normalise the bond stress by the square-root of the concrete compressive strength, √(f'c). The generalised monotonic bond behaviour is described within. An important outcome of the research is that the measured bond strength and stiffness was higher than stated by the bond stress-slip relationship in the fib Model Code 2010. To account for these observed differences, an alternative model is proposed for the local monotonic bond stress-slip relationship. Cyclic bond tests showed a significant proportion of the total bond degradation occurs after the loading cycle in the peak bond strength range, which is when bond slip has exceeded 0.5 mm. Subsequent loading to constant slip values showed a linear relationship between the amount of bond strength degradation and the log of the number of cycles that were applied. To a greater extent, the cyclic bond deterioration depends on the bond slip range, regardless of whether the applied load cycling is half- or fully-reversed. The observed bond deterioration and hysteretic energy dissipated during cyclic loading was found to agree reasonably well between these cyclic tests with different loading protocols. The cyclic bond deterioration was also found to be reasonably consistent exponential damage models found in the literature. This research concluded that the deformed reinforcing bars used in NZ construction, embedded in moderate to high strength concrete, are able to develop high local bond stresses that are mobilised by a small amount of local bond slip. Although the relative rib geometry was not varied within this experimental programme, a general conclusion of this thesis is that deformed bars currently available in NZ have a relative rib bearing area that is comparatively higher than the test bars used in previous international research. From the parametric study it was found that the maximum monotonic bond strength is significant enhanced by dynamic loading rates. Experimental evidence of high bond strength and initial bond stiffness generally suggests that only a small amount of local bond slip that can occur when the deformed test bar was subjected to large tension forces. Minimal bond slip and bond damage limits the effective yielding length that is available for the reinforcing steel to distribute inelastic material strains. Consequently, the potential for brittle fracture of the reinforcement may be a more problematic and widespread issue than is apparent to structural engineers. This research has provided information that improve the reliability of engineering predictions (with respect to ductility capacity) of maximum crack widths and the extent of bond deterioration that might occur in RC structures during seismic actions.

Research papers, Victoria University of Wellington

The standard way in which disaster damages are measured involves examining separately the number of fatalities, of injuries, of people otherwise affected, and the financial damage that natural disasters cause. Here, we implement a novel way to aggregate these separate measures of disaster impact and apply it to two recent catastrophic events: the Christchurch (New Zealand) earthquakes and the Greater Bangkok (Thailand) floods of 2011. This new measure, which is similar to the World Health Organization’s calculation of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost from the burden of diseases and injuries, is described in detail in Noy (2014). It allows us to conclude that New Zealand lost 180 thousand lifeyears as a result of the 2011 events, and Thailand lost 2,644 thousand years. In per capita terms, the loss is similar, with both countries losing about 15 days per person due to the 2011 catastrophic events in these two countries. We also compare these events to other potentially similar events.