CONTENTS ISSUE No. November 2012 020 TITLE PAGE Message from the President ....................................................................... 2 Education Committee ................................................................................. 2 SEABC's Newsletter is both Communications Committee ....................................................................... 3 edited and managed by The Repair of an Earthquake-damaged High-rise Shear Wall Building ............... 4 Communications Committee. Technical Committee .................................................................................. 8 [email protected] IStructE News............................................................................................. 9 Van Dusen Botanical Gardens Visitor Centre ............................................ 11 Submissions to the newsletter are Steel Day Tour ......................................................................................... 12 encouraged and all members of Donald Bridge........................................................................................... 13 the SEABC are asked to actively Reinforced Masonry Research .................................................................. 14 participate in contributing to our SEABC Wine and Cheese ........................................................................ 15 newsletter. Submissions letters to Confederation Bridge ................................................................................ 16 the Editor, questions and Photos of Interest ..................................................................................... 17 comments can be sent to: Young Members Group ............................................................................ 17 [email protected] On the Web .............................................................................................. 18 Membership Renewal ............................................................................... 18 SEABC editing staff reserve the Ask Dr. Sylvie ........................................................................................... 19 right to include or exclude Advertising ............................................................................................... 19 submitted material and in some Mark Your Calendars ................................................................................ 19 cases edit submitted material to suit overall space requirements. If Published by the submittals are not to be edited, Structural Engineers Association of BC please advise editor at submission time. Executives / Board of Directors President: Cameron Kemp Past President: David Davey Secretary / Treasurer: Surinder Parmar Other Directors: Bill Alcock, Renato Camporese, Ilana Danzig, Paul Fast, Adrian Gygax, David Harvey, Leonard Pianalto, Stephen Pienaar, Andrew Seeton, Cam Smith , Rob Simpson, Carlos Ventura Communications Committee Chair: David Harvey CSE Organizing Committee Chair: John Pao Education Committee Chair: Cam Smith Structural Practice Chair: Leonard Pianalto Technical Committee Chair: Renato Camporese Young Members Group: Ilana Danzig Newsletter Editor: David Harvey Assistant Editor: Catherine Porter; [email protected] Webmaster: Stephen Pienaar; [email protected] Web site: www.seabc.ca November 2012 SEABC Newsletter November 2012 that “normal” buildings aren’t “earthquake-proof” and, Message from in fact, may be severely damaged and need to be torn down after a design level earthquake. Countries like New Zealand are starting to rethink this philosophy in the President the wake of the recent major earthquakes they’ve November 2012 experienced in Christchurch and the fact that they will By Cameron Kemp, P.Eng.; ultimately end up having to almost entirely rebuild their SEABC President downtown core. A Couple of Pointed Reminders We need to continually revisit the balance between In recent weeks we’ve had a couple of “safety at any cost” and simply preserving human life reminders about who’s really in charge; (but incurring huge societal and financial hardships) by Mother Nature. One, closer to home, allowing our buildings to be severely damaged in was the magnitude 7.7 earthquake and extreme events. Our role as engineers goes beyond subsequent magnitude 6.4 aftershock just being technical experts. It needs to include having south-west of Haida Gwaii. a voice in how society deals with not only natural events like earthquakes and hurricanes but also the The other was Hurricane Sandy that man-made ones we’ve helped create like global started in the Southern Caribbean Sea, hit Jamaica warming and the resulting climate change it is and Cuba, skirted the southeast US and then slammed precipitating. ashore along the northeastern seaboard notably hitting the cities of Atlantic City, Pittsburgh, New York and the Mother Nature is trying to tell us something and we surrounding areas of New Jersey. Fortunately the need to decide how to respond to her. earthquake was located offshore and in a remotely inhabited area with no loss of life or damage. Sandy, unfortunately, was another story with many deaths and untold billions in damage. Education Whether it is an earthquake or a major storm like Sandy a significant factor determining whether these Committee natural events are simply notable or devastating are how well we design and build our buildings and urban By Cam Smith, Director SEABC infrastructure to withstand them. Too often we find Mother Nature exposes the shortcomings in our Wine and Cheese 2012 designs or the flaws in our construction. Following the end of the summer break, We must continue to improve our knowledge of design the SEABC Education Committee has and construction to ensure that our structures are been busy making preparations for tough, durable and ductile enough to withstand what several seminars and events. Two of she will throw at them. All of our structures have a long these events have since passed, enough design life that they will have a high probability including the annual ‘Wine & Cheese’ of experiencing, at least once in their lifetime, an which was held this year on September earthquake like the one in Haida Gwaii or a hurricane 19th at the British Colombia Institute of Technology. like Sandy. The event was well attended by practitioners, faculty and students and included a presentation by Dr. As the technical experts our responsibility for the safety Svetlana Brzev and Nazli Azimikor summarizing the of the public goes beyond designing and building safe findings from a recent research project titled “Stability buildings. We must also influence public policies and of Reinforced Masonry Shear Walls under Seismic standards and educate the public about what they can Loading”. The project was a collaborative effort expect from the buildings we design. I have had many between faculty and students from both BCIT and conversations with people about the principles behind UBC. David Harvey provided opening comments on modern seismic design and most are aghast to find out behalf of the SEABC Executive. Page 2 of 20 SEABC Newsletter November 2012 Past Evening Seminar: ‘Energy-Efficient Buildings & Passive House’ Communications On October 17th Robert Malcyzk, P.Eng., Struct.Eng., Principal, Equilibrium Consulting Inc. presented the Committee seminar ‘Energy-Efficient Buildings & Passive House’. By David Harvey, P.Eng, Struct.Eng. This seminar provided a brief history of energy efficient Director SEABC buildings in Canada as well as new trends in design and construction. The term ‘Passive House’ is Many thanks to those who forwarded becoming the accepted worldwide standard for energy articles to the newsletter describing efficiency with around 50 PH buildings having now their recent work. This edition features been completed across Canada, more than 500 in the research into reinforced masonry walls US and over 40,000 in Europe. by Dr. Svetlana Brzev, and an article by John Sherstobitoff and Dr Perry Adebar Past Evening Seminar: ‘Ground Shaking During the 2011 describing the analysis and repair of a Japan Earthquake: What Have We Learned?’ building damaged during the Chilean earthquake. By informing our members The November 14 evening seminar was titled, ‘Ground of the engineering we carry out, we maintain interest in Shaking During the 2011 Japan Earthquake: What our well-read magazine and help raise the profile of the Have We Learned?” by Dr. Carlos Ventura, P.Eng., profession. There is always much to learn from the P.E., UBC Department of Civil Engineering. information that the structural engineer responsible for the work can provide. A vast amount of data was recorded during the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku Japan earthquake, including Please continue to let your fellow structural engineers long-period ground motions and data captured from a know what you are up to. It is also a great way to raise significant number of buildings that were instrumented. your profile in the structural community, so why not The presentation provided a discussion of the unique give it a go? We look forward to hearing from you. characteristics of this earthquake as well as a comparison of its ground motions with those recorded Please forward information for publication to:- during the recent New Zealand and Chile earthquakes. Special emphasis was placed on the response of [email protected] instrumented buildings and the associated damage due to the effects of duration of shaking. The seminar – We’ll do our best to include as many interesting concluded