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The Demise of the URM Building Stock in Christchurch During the 2010- 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence

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The Demise of the URM Building Stock in Christchurch During the 2010- 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Moon, Lisa, Dizhur, Dmytro, Senaldi, Ilaria, Derakhshan, Hossein, Griffith, Michael, Magenes, Guido, & Ingham, Jason (2014) The demise of the URM building stock in Christchurch during the 2010- 2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence. Earthquake Spectra, 30(1), pp. 253-276. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/119501/ c Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. https://doi.org/10.1193/022113EQS044M 1 The Demise of the URM Building Stock in 2 Christchurch during the 2010 –2011 3 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence a) b) c) d) 4 Lisa Moon, Dmytro Dizhur, Ilaria Senaldi, Hossein Derakhshan, e) f ) g) 5 Michael Griffith, M.EERI, Guido Magenes, and Jason Ingham, M.EERI 6 The progressive damage and subsequent demolition of unreinforced masonry 7 (URM) buildings arising from the Canterbury earthquake sequence is reported. 8 A dataset was compiled of all URM buildings located within the Christchurch 9 CBD, including information on location, building characteristics, and damage 10 levels after each major earthquake in this sequence. A general description of 11 the overall damage and the hazard to both building occupants and to nearby 12 pedestrians due to debris falling from URM buildings is presented with several 13 case study buildings used to describe the accumulation of damage over the 14 earthquake sequence. The benefit of seismic improvement techniques that had 15 been installed to URM buildings is shown by the reduced damage ratios 16 reported for increased levels of retrofit. Demolition statistics for URM buildings 17 in the Christchurch CBD are also reported and discussed. [DOI: 10.1193/ 022113EQS044M] 18 INTRODUCTION 19 There have been over 11,000 earthquakes and aftershocks associated with what is 20 referred to here as the 2010 –2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence (Bradley et al. 2013). 21 The Christchurch Central Business District (CBD) was defined by the Canterbury Earth- 22 quake Royal Commission (2011) as the area bounded by the four avenues (Bealey, 23 Fitzgerald, Moorhouse and Deans) and Harper Avenue (Figure 1a), with Bradley et al. 24 (2013) reporting that the intensity of shaking recorded at the CCCC site (refer Figure 1a) 25 was representative of that experienced across most of the CBD. Ground motion in five a) Doctoral researcher, School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia b) Research Fellow, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand c) Doctoral researcher, ROSE Program, UME School, IUSS, Via Ferrata 1, Pavia, Italy d) Research Fellow, School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia e) Professor, School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia f) Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Pavia and European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE), Via Ferrata 3, Pavia, Italy g) Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand 1 Earthquake Spectra, Volume 30, No. 1, pages 1 –24, February 2014; © 2014, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute 2 MOON ET AL. 0.3 4 Sept 26 Dec 22 Feb 23 Dec 23 Dec 0.2 2010 2010 2011 2011 2011 0.1 0 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 Ground Acceleration (g) -0.4 |<-- 127 seconds -->| 25 s |<-- 47 s -->|<-- 63s -->|<-- 64 -->| -0.5 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Time (seconds) (a) Location of CCCC recording station (b) Horizontal component N64E 0.4 0.8 4 Sept 26 Dec 22 Feb 23 Dec 23 Dec 0.7 4 Sept 26 Dec 22 Feb 23 Dec 23 Dec 0.3 2010 2010 2011 2011 2011 2010 2010 2011 2011 2011 0.6 0.2 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.2 0 0.1 0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 |<-- 127 seconds -->| 25 s |<-- 47 s -->|<-- 63s -->|<-- 64 -->| Ground Acceleration (g) Ground Acceleration (g) |<-- 127 seconds -->| 25 s |<-- 47 s -->|<-- 63s -->|<-- 64 -->| -0.3 -0.4 -0.5 -0.4 -0.6 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Time (seconds) Time (seconds) (c) Horizontal component N26W (d) Vertical component Figure 1. Details of combined earthquake recordings in the Christchurch CBD. 26 of these events, with a combined duration of approximately 325 seconds, caused horizontal 27 ground accelerations in excess of 0.15g (Figure 1b –d) at the CCCC site. 28 For completeness it is noted that while the Darfield earthquake (4/9/2010) had a greater 29 magnitude (Mw 7.1), its epicenter was located much further away (approximately 40 km) 30 from the Christchurch CBD than was the Mw 6.3 Christchurch earthquake (22/2/2011) 31 whose epicenter was only 10 km from the Christchurch CBD. Thus, from a ground accel- 32 eration perspective, the Darfield earthquake elastic spectra for sites in the CBD were roughly 33 consistent with the elastic design spectra for a 500-year return period event for Christchurch. 34 In contrast, the spectra for the same sites in the February 2011 event corresponded roughly to 35 the 1/2500 year design earthquake (Bradley and Cubrinovski 2011). 36 OBSERVED PERFORMANCE OF URM BUILDINGS 37 The results from two companion studies are presented below. The first study considered 38 all URM buildings in the Christchurch CBD and was undertaken at the request of the 39 Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission (Ingham and Griffith 2011c). The second 40 study specifically focused on stone URM buildings, due to both the disproportionately THE DEMISE OF THE URM BUILDING STOCK IN CHRISTCHURCH 3 41 large number of stone URM buildings in the Christchurch region when compared to all of 42 New Zealand and because of the particular heritage significance of many of these buildings 43 (Senaldi et al. 2013). A third companion study considering the seismic performance of 112 44 Christchurch churches (including 20 clay brick and 32 stone URM churches) has been 45 reported elsewhere (Leite et al. 2013). 46 MATERIAL PROPERTIES 47 The general observation from the debris of collapsed URM walls was that the kiln fired 48 clay bricks were of sound condition, but that the mortar was in poor condition. In most cases 49 the fallen debris had collapsed into piles of individual bricks, rather than as larger chunks of 50 masonry debris, and when rubbed the mortar readily crumbled when subjected to finger pres- 51 sure (refer Figure 2), suggesting that the mortar compression and shear strengths were very 52 low. Subsequent testing (Lumantarna 2012) of 293 mortar samples and 67 clay bricks col- 53 lected from 51 and 23 damaged URM building sites respectively located across the greater 54 Christchurch area resulted in average compressive strengths of 1.75 MPa and 23.6 MPa for 55 the mortar and bricks, confirming the initial observation that mortar was frequently in 56 poor condition (i.e., soft) but that the bricks were reasonably strong. These findings are con- 57 sistent with results obtained from testing of other URM buildings throughout New Zealand 58 (Lumantarna et al. 2013a, b). 59 When undertaking a post-earthquake review of archived files reporting the design of 60 earthquake strengthening interventions for URM buildings in the Christchurch CBD 61 there was little evidence found on comprehensive site investigations conducted by practicing 62 engineers in order to determine appropriate masonry material proprieties (i.e., mortar bed 63 joint shear tests and anchor pull-out tests) to be used in their designs. Instead, it appeared 64 that most conclusions regarding building condition and material properties were based on 65 visual observations. In contrast, extensive material investigation on existing buildings is Figure 2. Condition of masonry rubble. 4 MOON ET AL. 66 routinely conducted in the U.S. in order to establish both the existing condition of the build- 67 ing and accurate and reliable material properties for use in structural designs. 68 TYPICAL FAILURE MODES AND DAMAGE PATTERNS 69 Comprehensive descriptions of the damage caused to URM buildings by the Canterbury 70 earthquake sequence have been previously reported (Dizhur et al. 2010, Dizhur et al. 2011, Table 1. List of the most commonly observed URM building failure modes Component Failure mode: Damage Chimney Frequent flexural failures, falling brickwork, damage to roof and/or adjacent structures (most commercial buildings had no chimneys, or chimneys that were not visible from the street, so numbers were not recorded) Gable end wall Out-of-plane failure due to missing or excessively spaced ties (63% of buildings with gables (120∕189) had partial or full collapses of gables) Parapets Frequent collapse of both unrestrained and restrained parapets.
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