New building construction design methods will withstand future earthquakes, without the damage observed during the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquake sequences.

These are the findings of a team of researchers, funded by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE) in China, QuakeCoRE, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment. The researchers, who partnered with ILEE in 2016, were given the opportunity to access some of the world’s top earthquake engineering testing facilities and have just completed a significant test of New Zealand building construction.

Their main objective was to validate low-damage building designs being used in new construction in New Zealand. The idea was to test how building walls rock back and forth, so it can be subjected to a large number of earthquakes without sustaining significant damage. The test was then able to simulate different types of earthquakes, rather than a single event.

“If the test building performs well, New Zealand engineers can be confident that the new design methods will protect buildings from significant damage during earthquakes, avoiding the need for costly and disruptive structural repairs or demolition,” QuakeCoRE researcher Rick Henry said.

The project, by Henry, with support from co-PI Ying Zhou (Tongji University), also included Geoff Rodgers (University of Canterbury) and Ken Elwood (University of Auckland) and research fellow Yiqiu Lu (University of Auckland). An industry advisory group with representatives from leading engineering consultancies provided valuable input to the test objectives and building design.