Understanding earthquake ground shaking, or the earthquake ground motion (GM) hazard, is critical to understanding the earthquake risk for planning, design and development in New Zealand. There are several techniques for determining GMs for input into the planning and design of built infrastructure. This report discusses some of these techniques and when they could be applied to projects to improve the understanding of earthquake GM hazards for planning and design.
This document is intended to act as a guide for building owners and to provide a pathway through the process of responding to notification that your building has either been:
This guideline provides a framework for assessing technical resilience of three waters piped assets.
It has been prepared to support local authorities and the private sector (including asset managers, operators and engineers) at local and regional levels with assessing technical resilience and in developing strategies to improve network resilience, and inform pre-event planning and post-event emergency support and recovery.
In the aftermath of the 2010-2011 Canterbury and 2016 Kaikōura earthquakes, invasive seismic testing has become more commonly used in geotechnical earthquake engineering. However, several critical aspects of both data collection and data processing are not well understood by either the contractors collecting and processing the data or the geotechnical engineers using the data.
New Zealand has over 3,000 earth embankment dams and canals, many of which were constructed prior to the evolution of modern granular filter criteria for dam design in the mid-1980s. Tekapo Canal is one such structure, constructed from 1971 to 1977 as a 26 km long conveyance canal, linking two hydropower stations in the inland Canterbury region. Tekapo canal is constructed of widely-graded soils of glacial origin. Challenges with material compaction and constructability were reported during construction.
The replacement value of New Zealand’s wastewater networks is significant, being estimated to be NZ$15.8 billion (LGNZ, 2014). Making good investment decisions is therefore very important. This document is intended to be a resource to assist public sector organisations make evidence‐based decisions on the renewal of gravity wastewater pipelines.
This report outlines the findings of two independent studies by PTL Structural Consultants (PTL) and Holmes Consulting LP
(HCLP) which have validated the use of an earthquake induced lateral force distribution, develop by Dr D.
Gardiner (at University of Canterbury). The method for determining the lateral force distribution for
designing the diaphragms of buildings is known as “the pseudo-Equivalent Static Analysis (pESA)”.
Principal Investigator Dr R Henry, University of Auckland
After the Canterbury Earthquakes the Royal Commission and SESOC raised issues relating to the design of lightly reinforced and precast concrete walls. This research project looked to address and give guidance on the following:
The 2017 Partner workshop was held at Opus in Christchurch on Tuesday 5 December. There were 22 presentations giving an overview of the work undertaken throughout the year. The presentation was followed up by a poster session allowing participants the opportunity to ask in-depth questions of the project managers and researchers. The posters can be downloaded below.
International experts Dr. Michel Bruneau, Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Buffalo and Dr. Greg MacRae, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Natural resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury have collaborated on an extensive report on the factors underpinning decisions made in the rebuild of Christchurch after the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010-2011. It is based on interviews with structural designers of up to 60% of the buildings design to date in the rebuild.