Information paper- Earthquake Engineering
2011:This information paper reports on earthquake damage to buildings in Christchurch from the 4 September earthquake, and its associated aftershocks, and what this means for building design in the future.
The paper brings together the science and engineering expertise of several organisations – the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, the Structural Engineering Society New Zealand, the New Zealand Geotechnical Society and the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering.
It provides answers to critical questions such as ‘What is an earthquake prone building?’, ‘Why did buildings collapse in these earthquakes?’, and ‘Given that a building has been through one earthquake, how do we know how much of its “earthquake life” has been used up?’
The paper looks to answer questions related to the expected performance of buildings during earthquakes as well as their actual behaviour in Christchurch.
The contributing organisations hope it will also provide better public understanding about designing buildings to resist earthquakes, and the new lessons to be learnt following the Canterbury earthquakes.
Download the full paper here
Read the Science Media Centre release here