BeckerFraserPhotos March 2012 photograph 244

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The west wall of the Christ Church Cathedral".

BeckerFraserPhotos March 2012 photograph 246

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The west wall of the Christ Church Cathedral where the rose window fell during the 23 December 2011 earthquake. Steel bracing has been used to hold up the front of the church".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0356

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the ChristChurch Cathedral showing the damage to the west wall and steel bracing.

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0355

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the ChristChurch Cathedral showing the damage to the west wall and steel bracing.

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0293

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the Excelsior Hotel as the north wall is rebuilt and the west-facing Manchester Street facade is restored.

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0367

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph showing parts of the interior ChristChurch Cathedral, including the top of a stained glass window, visible through the damaged west wall.

BeckerFraserPhotos June 2012 photograph 009

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "River Avon looking west from the Manchester Street bridge. The damaged wall by the Edmonds band rotunda can be seen".

Julia Holden's 2012 Photographs 065

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of bricks and building rubble stacked in front of the west-facing wall of the badly-damaged McKenzie & Willis building on the corner of High Street and Tuam Street.

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0354

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the ChristChurch Cathedral showing the damage to the west wall and steel bracing. In the foreground is the plinth where a statue of John Robert Godley stood prior to the February 2011 earthquake.

BeckerFraserPhotos March 2012 photograph 252

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The west wall of the Christ Church Cathedral where the rose window fell during the 23 December 2011 earthquake. Steel bracing has been used to hold up the front of the church".

BeckerFraserPhotos March 2012 photograph 245

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The west wall of the Christ Church Cathedral where the rose window fell during the 23 December 2011 earthquake. Steel bracing has been used to hold up the front of the church".

Elizabeth Ackermann Photograph 350

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the north-west corner of the ChristChurch Cathedral in Cathedral Square. The tower to the right has been partially demolished with only the lower section remaining. The door to the tower can be seen through the broken walls.

Seismic performance of a six storey reinforced masonry building during the…

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

During the Christchurch earthquake of February 2011, several midrise buildings of Reinforced Concrete Masonry (RCM) construction achieved performance levels in the range of life safety to near collapse levels. These buildings were subjected to seismic demands higher than the building code requirements of the time and higher than the current New Zealand Loadings Standard (NZS-1170.5:2004). Structural damage to these buildings has been documented and is currently being studied to establish lessons to be learned from their performance and how to incorporate these lessons into future RCM design and construction practices. This paper presents a case study of a six story RCM building deemed to have reached the near collapse performance level. The RCM walls on the 2nd floor failed due to toe crushing reducing the building’s lateral resistance in the east-west direction. A nonlinear dynamic analysis on a 3D model was conducted to simulate the development of the governing failure mechanism. Preliminary analysis results show that the damaged walls were initially under large compression forces from gravity loads which caused increase in their lateral strength and reduced their ductility. After toe crushing failure developed, axial instability of the model was prevented by a redistribution of gravity loads.