The damage to Christchurch’s lifelines has been observed widely across the region as a result of the Canterbury earthquake sequence. In order to incorporate earthquake resilience into infrastructure repair and design, a cost effective and non-intrusive method of liquefaction mitigation is required. Commonly applied methods…
During past major earthquakes in Christchurch, enormous damage to engineered structures and lifelines has been caused by liquefaction-induced ground failures. Standard penetration test is the most commonly used in situ test for soil characterization of liquefaction resistance. However this test has some limitations. A major…
This paper sets out a simplified approach by which the practical foundation designer can undertake the relevant calculations to satisfy the requirements for deep foundation design in seismic areas. The following matters are dealt with: Design issues that should be addressed; Pile design for axial…
In most design codes, soils are classified as either sand or clay, and appropriate design equations are used to represent their behaviour. For example, the behaviour of sandy soils is expressed in terms of the soil’s relative density, whereas consistency limits are often used for clays. However, sand-clay…
The soil site spectra for site classes D and E in the current NZ design code impose a significant increase in the displacement demands, between 50 and 300% for a structure with a period of 1.0s or longer, compared with a rock site (class A/B)…
During both March and July, 2007 the Far North district of the North Island in New Zealand was hit by a series of severe storm events, which caused over 60 large slope failures along the roading network. Faced with the challenge of remediating such a large number…
This paper describes a case study in Fiji involving the use of pre-loading to accelerate primary consolidation settlement prior to constructing buildings over soft Holocene materials. The pre-loading involved placing a surcharge exceeding the weight of the future structures. Careful monitoring took place to ensure…
This contribution addresses the seat length required to avoid unseating of bridge girders under strong earthquakes. In the investigation simulated ground motions according to the Japanese design spectrum for soft soil site are applied. The analysis of two adjacent bridge structures is performed using a combined finite…
A simplified method of assessing soil structure interaction (SSI) using a single degree of freedom representation of the structure is presented. The simplified method uses recommendations from the SEI/ASCE code and implements the response spectra of NZS 1170.5. Three typical structures are analysed, and it…
The sliding block model proposed by Newmark (1965) is an accepted methodology for assessing the accumulated displacement of a soil slope during an earthquake. For slopes restrained by elastic structural elements, such as geotextile reinforcement or ground anchors, the assumptions behind the Newmark block model may…