Seismic assessment and strengthening.

Our seismic assessment and seismic strengthening design services include:

• Initial Seismic Assessments (ISA) / Initial Evaluation Procedure (IEP)
• Detailed Seismic Assessments (DSA) / Detailed Engineering Evaluation (DEE) of existing structures
• Seismic strengthening / retrofitting (timber, steel, concrete, & masonry buildings / road and rail bridges)

Earthquakes in New Zealand occur on a regular basis and cause damages to many types of engineering structures. It is a constant threat to our well-being that can cause significant injuries and fatalities, and also substantial financial losses due to damages to property and disruption to business operations. Existing older buildings and bridges are more prone to these damaging seismic effects as they have been designed to outdated structural codes that have lower requirements than the current code. The New Zealand Building Act 2004 has required Territorial Authorities to identify and strengthen these ‘Earthquake-Prone’ buildings. This has necessitated building owners to demonstrate the seismic capacity rating of their buildings.

Assessing the earthquake performance of existing structures can be a complex task. Structures have unique characteristics with numerous structural elements. In-depth analyses are often required in order to properly establish the seismic behaviours of structures. Simplified analyses can be performed, but these are usually conservative and results in a lower seismic capacity rating. More complex ‘nonlinear’ analyses are usually required to identify collapse mechanisms and thus quantify higher and more realistic seismic capacity ratings.

What we can provide:

Tectonix Design and Consulting can help with providing a cost-effective seismic assessment and strengthening design of your structure. Our team have significant technical expertise with nonlinear seismic analysis of buildings and bridges. We have often been called upon to provide technical advice or to train other structural engineers in this aspect. Our analysis method goes beyond the texts of the New Zealand Standards and more into the fundamentals of structural nonlinear behaviour, collapse mechanisms, and performance-based analysis. This approach yields an improved understanding of the structure and a better, more rational structural seismic capacity rating.

Previous Projects:

Some of the projects that we've worked on include: