Premium
Behaviour of tilt‐up precast concrete buildings during the 2010/2011 Christchurch earthquakes
Author(s) -
Henry Richard,
Ingham Jason
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
structural concrete
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1751-7648
pISSN - 1464-4177
DOI - 10.1002/suco.201100035
Subject(s) - precast concrete , aftershock , structural engineering , cladding (metalworking) , engineering , slab , geotechnical engineering , forensic engineering , geology , seismology , materials science , metallurgy
The Christchurch region of New Zealand experienced a series of major earthquakes and aftershocks between September 2010 and June 2011 which caused severe damage to the city's infrastructure. The performance of tilt‐up precast concrete buildings was investigated and initial observations are presented here. In general, tilt‐up buildings performed well during all three major earthquakes, with mostly only minor, repairable damage occurring. For the in‐plane loading direction, both loadbearing and cladding panels behaved exceptionally well, with no significant damage or failure observed in panels and their connections. A limited number of connection failures occurred due to large out‐of‐plane panel inertia forces. In several buildings, the connections between the panel and the internal structural frame appeared to be the weakest link, lacking in both strength and ductility. This weakness in the out‐of‐plane load path should be prevented in future designs.