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Articles, UC QuakeStudies

Caption reads: "We were the only people around here for a long time. All of our neighbours moved out. It wont be long until Bexley is empty, and after that it will be gone."

Articles, UC QuakeStudies

A digital photograph in PDF format with caption. Image looks south down Kingsford street. Port hills on the horizon with potholes in the foreground that progressively got worse after the Feburary 2011 earthquake.

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The recent instances of seismic activity in Canterbury (2010/11) and Kaikōura (2016) in New Zealand have exposed an unexpected level of damage to non-structural components, such as buried pipelines and building envelope systems. The cost of broken buried infrastructure, such as pipeline systems, to the Christchurch Council was excessive, as was the cost of repairing building envelopes to building owners in both Christchurch and Wellington (due to the Kaikōura earthquake), which indicates there are problems with compliance pathways for both of these systems. Councils rely on product testing and robust engineering design practices to provide compliance certification on the suitability of product systems, while asset and building owners rely on the compliance as proof of an acceptable design. In addition, forensic engineers and lifeline analysts rely on the same product testing and design techniques to analyse earthquake-related failures or predict future outcomes pre-earthquake, respectively. The aim of this research was to record the actual field-observed damage from the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes of seismic damage to buried pipeline and building envelope systems, develop suitable testing protocols to be able to test the systems’ seismic resilience, and produce prediction design tools that deliver results that reflect the collected field observations with better accuracy than the present tools used by forensic engineers and lifeline analysts. The main research chapters of this thesis comprise of four publications that describe the gathering of seismic damage to pipes (Publication 1 of 4) and building envelopes (Publication 2 of 4). Experimental testing and the development of prediction design tools for both systems are described in Publications 3 and 4. The field observation (discussed in Publication 1 of 4) revealed that segmented pipe joints, such as those used in thick-walled PVC pipes, were particularly unsatisfactory with respect to the joint’s seismic resilience capabilities. Once the joint was damaged, silt and other deleterious material were able to penetrate the pipeline, causing blockages and the shutdown of key infrastructure services. At present, the governing Standards for PVC pipes are AS/NZS 1477 (pressure systems) and AS/NZS 1260 (gravity systems), which do not include a protocol for evaluating the PVC pipes for joint seismic resilience. Testing methodologies were designed to test a PVC pipe joint under various different simultaneously applied axial and transverse loads (discussed in Publication 3 of 4). The goal of the laboratory experiment was to establish an easy to apply testing protocol that could fill the void in the mentioned standards and produce boundary data that could be used to develop a design tool that could predict the observed failures given site-specific conditions surrounding the pipe. A tremendous amount of building envelope glazing system damage was recorded in the CBDs of both Christchurch and Wellington, which included gasket dislodgement, cracked glazing, and dislodged glazing. The observational research (Publication 2 of 4) concluded that the glazing systems were a good indication of building envelope damage as the glazing had consistent breaking characteristics, like a ballistic fuse used in forensic blast analysis. The compliance testing protocol recognised in the New Zealand Building Code, Verification Method E2/VM1, relies on the testing method from the Standard AS/NZS 4284 and stipulates the inclusion of typical penetrations, such as glazing systems, to be included in the test specimen. Some of the building envelope systems that failed in the recent New Zealand earthquakes were assessed with glazing systems using either the AS/NZS 4284 or E2/VM1 methods and still failed unexpectedly, which suggests that improvements to the testing protocols are required. An experiment was designed to mimic the observed earthquake damage using bi-directional loading (discussed in Publication 4 of 4) and to identify improvements to the current testing protocol. In a similar way to pipes, the observational and test data was then used to develop a design prediction tool. For both pipes (Publication 3 of 4) and glazing systems (Publication 4 of 4), experimentation suggests that modifying the existing testing Standards would yield more realistic earthquake damage results. The research indicates that including a specific joint testing regime for pipes and positioning the glazing system in a specific location in the specimen would improve the relevant Standards with respect to seismic resilience of these systems. Improving seismic resilience in pipe joints and glazing systems would improve existing Council compliance pathways, which would potentially reduce the liability of damage claims against the government after an earthquake event. The developed design prediction tool, for both pipe and glazing systems, uses local data specific to the system being scrutinised, such as local geology, dimensional characteristics of the system, actual or predicted peak ground accelerations (both vertically and horizontally) and results of product-specific bi-directional testing. The design prediction tools would improve the accuracy of existing techniques used by forensic engineers examining the cause of failure after an earthquake and for lifeline analysts examining predictive earthquake damage scenarios.

Videos, UC QuakeStudies

A video of a presentation by Matthew Pratt during the Resilience and Response Stream of the 2016 People in Disasters Conference. The presentation is titled, "Investing in Connectedness: Building social capital to save lives and aid recovery".The abstract for this presentation reads as follows: Traditionally experts have developed plans to prepare communities for disasters. This presentation discusses the importance of relationship-building and social capital in building resilient communities that are both 'prepared' to respond to disaster events, and 'enabled' to lead their own recovery. As a member of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority's Community Resilience Team, I will present the work I undertook to catalyse community recovery. I will draw from case studies of initiatives that have built community connectedness, community capacity, and provided new opportunities for social cohesion and neighbourhood planning. I will compare three case studies that highlight how social capital can aid recovery. Investment in relationships is crucial to aid preparedness and recovery.

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Peter Majendie, in the middle of his installation '185 Empty Chairs', which remembers the 185 who died as a result of the 22nd February earthquake. The chairs are different so that you can find a chair to remind you in some way of the people who died. Peter told me about the important paintings of chairs, such as Van Gogh and Gaugin's paintings of chairs and the drawing of Dickens's Chair published above his obituary that influenced his decision to remember the lost lives with chairs".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of components of a model of the ChristChurch Cathedral being built from LEGO by Sam Butcher. Sam comments "Fixing a large variety of bits that were wrong/annoying/cheating (not purist) about the last model. The new one is set AFTER the Feb 22 earthquake. This newer, and much stronger model is also completely modular for easier transport. Obviously still a WIP, I'm currently waiting for a pretty large bricklink order at the moment, and will probably need to place a couple more after that too. Back on the new technical design for the Cathedral Rose Window".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of components of a model of the ChristChurch Cathedral being built from LEGO by Sam Butcher. Sam comments "Fixing a large variety of bits that were wrong/annoying/cheating (not purist) about the last model. The new one is set AFTER the Feb 22 earthquake. This newer, and much stronger model is also completely modular for easier transport. Obviously still a WIP, I'm currently waiting for a pretty large bricklink order at the moment, and will probably need to place a couple more after that too. Front on the new technical design for the Cathedral Rose Window".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of components of a model of the ChristChurch Cathedral being built from LEGO by Sam Butcher. Sam comments "Fixing a large variety of bits that were wrong/annoying/cheating (not purist) about the last model. The new one is set AFTER the Feb 22 earthquake. This newer, and much stronger model is also completely modular for easier transport. Obviously still a WIP, I'm currently waiting for a pretty large bricklink order at the moment, and will probably need to place a couple more after that too. Side of the new technical design for the Cathedral Rose Window".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of components of a model of the ChristChurch Cathedral being built from LEGO by Sam Butcher. Sam comments "Fixing a large variety of bits that were wrong/annoying/cheating (not purist) about the last model. The new one is set AFTER the Feb 22 earthquake. This newer, and much stronger model is also completely modular for easier transport. Obviously still a WIP, I'm currently waiting for a pretty large bricklink order at the moment, and will probably need to place a couple more after that too. The new base, which breaks into two sections each 48x70 studs".