Kiwi Earthquake Innovations Tested On One Of The World’s Largest Shake Tables

Real-life earthquake testing on three-storey buildings in
one of the world’s biggest earthquake laboratories has
delivered stunning results and endorsements for New Zealand
engineering solutions.

With the support of EQC Toka
Tū Ake and a number of New Zealand research agencies, Kiwi
engineers have been working closely with their Chinese
counterparts at the Tongji University in Shanghai to test a
variety of New Zealand innovations on one of the largest
shake tables on the planet, as part of the ROBUST (RObust
BUilding SysTems) project.

Professor Greg MacRae, from
the University of Canterbury, explains that the scope of the
testing at the International Laboratory for Earthquake
Engineering in Shanghai would be impossible in New Zealand,
and the collaboration has provided stunning results and
endorsements for New Zealand and Chinese engineering
solutions.

“New Zealand is at the cutting edge of
earthquake engineering, but we would never be able to test
our solutions on a three-storey building in an earthquake
laboratory back home,” says MacRae who is the project
coordinator between the Chinese and New Zealand agencies,
including EQC, BRANZ, University of Auckland, University of
Canterbury, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), HERA
Foundation, QuakeCoRE and the Building Innovation
Partnership.

A number of innovative connections to
reduce building damage and increase seismic resilience were
tested well beyond the shaking of the Canterbury earthquake,
along with some non-structural construction elements like
partition walls, sprinklers and ceilings.

MacRae says
the testing will wrap up this month and will give
researchers and engineers a treasure trove of data to
analyse over the coming months.

EQC Head of Research
Dr Natalie Balfour says ROBUST is a great example of how
funders with different vested interests can come together to
enable world-leading research.

“EQC is particularly
interested in how this research can lead to more
earthquake-resilient buildings. Some of the technology being
tested through ROBUST is already in use in buildings across
Aotearoa, so it’s important to understand how they will
behave in future earthquakes. These results will help design
buildings to withstand large earthquakes and minimise
damage.”

One of the solutions tested in Shanghai was
the sliding hinge connections developed by Professor Charles
Clifton and improved at other New Zealand universities,
including by Dr Shahab Ramhormozian from Auckland University
of Technology who received the Ivan Skinner award by EQC in
2022 to fine-tune this “transformational” building
connection.

The sliding hinge connection has been
welcomed and used by engineers in New Zealand and abroad,
but Dr Ramhormozian says that the rigorous testing in
Shanghai is an important endorsement for the engineering
world.

“We know that these new solutions work, but
we can never test them to the level we have been able to in
China, so for engineers and building developers it is hugely
important to give them confidence that these connections
will withstand very intense earthquake shaking such as we
experience in New Zealand.”

Project coordinator
Professor MacRae says that the collaboration with China has
not only validated existing engineering solutions, but has
also given his colleagues a deeper knowledge on how to
design, validate and improve systems.

“The work,
which uses widely disseminated technology developed in New
Zealand, complemented by resources and new ideas from
Chinese colleagues, creates a win-win situation, which will
hopefully save lives and protect infrastructure around the
world.”

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