Research

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QuakeCoRE aims to establish and link multi-institutional national research programmes that are internationally networked. The research programmes will advance the science and implementation pathways of earthquake resilience through system-level science with highly integrated collaborations coordinated across the physical, engineering and social sciences and relevant research institutions. Our research is organised into Technology Platforms, Flagship Programmes, Integrative Projects and Special Projects.

 
Publications
FP-TP-Illustration-v2

Flagship Programmes

Five Flagship Programmes (FP) are leading high-impact research through multi-institution and multi-disciplinary research collaboration, engagement with end-users, and the wider earthquake resilience research ecosystem.

 
Flagship Programme 1: Ground Motion Simulation
Leader: Brendon Bradley
Deputy Leader: Didier Pettinga
Industry Representative: Didier Pettinga , Holmes Consulting

This flagship aims to provide a paradigm shift in ground motion prediction via theoretical developments in physics-based simulation methods and their utilisation in engineering design and assessment.


Flagship Programme 2: Liquefaction Impacts on Land and Infrastructure
Leader: Misko Cubrinovski
Deputy Leader: Sjoerd van Ballegooy
Industry Representative: Sjoerd van Ballegooy, Tonkin & Taylor

This flagship focuses on next-generation assessment methods and mitigation strategies for soil liquefaction, one of the principal earthquake hazards affecting land and infrastructure in New Zealand.


Flagship Programme 3: Addressing Earthquake-vulnerable Buildings – A Multidisciplinary Approach
Leader: Ken Elwood
Deputy Leader: Ilan Noy
Industry Representative: Bryce Davies, IAG

This flagship addresses the risk posed by collapse-vulnerable earthquake-prone buildings through a multi-disciplinary lens.


Flagship Programme 4: Next-generation Infrastructure: Low-damage and Repairable Solutions
Leader: Tim Sullivan
Deputy Leader: Rick Henry
Industry Representative: Jared Keen, Beca

This flagship seeks a new design paradigm where reparability and damage control is explicitly considered in the design process of buildings and infrastructure.


Flagship Programme 5: Pathways to Improved Resilience
Leader: David Johnston
Deputy Leader:
Industry Representative: Mike Mendonça, Wellington City Council

This flagship focuses on determining how we decide where to invest our limited resources to most effectively improve New Zealand’s resilience to earthquakes.


Case-Studies

Integrative Projects are QuakeCoRE-funded projects which aim to further integrate the multi-disciplinary research activities that happen within the Flagships and Technology Platforms.

 
Earthquake Case study: Alpine Fault Earthquake Impacts on the South and Lower North Islands
April 2017 –Sept 2018

Our initial case study focuses around an Alpine Fault earthquake rupture scenario in order to contextualise each aspect of the earthquake resilience ‘pipeline’, the expertise for which resides within the FPs themselves. This project leverages off the “Project AF8” programme funded by the National Resilience Fund and seeks to apply the latest research understanding for impacts of Alpine Fault earthquakes, and through end-user engagement, use the results of this project toward tangible improvements in New Zealand earthquake resilience. Notably, this case-study project will learn from the Kaikōura Earthquake to better understand the impacts of future Alpine Fault Earthquakes.

Technology Platforms

Four Technology Platforms (TP) provide the underpinning experimental (lab and field), computational, and data infrastructure which are necessary for realizing QuakeCoREs' vision and mission and involve cross-institutional and industry collaborations.

 
Technology Platform 1: Large-scale Laboratory Facilities
Leader: Rick Henry
Deputy Leader:

This platform supports enhanced collaboration across domestic and international large-scale experimental facilities, innovative testing procedures and instrumentation.


Technology Platform 2: Field-testing and Monitoring
Leader: Liam Wotherspoon
Deputy Leader: Quincy Ma

This platform is building on New Zealand leadership in field testing and monitoring to focus on development of world-class testing technologies and urban system monitoring.


Technology Platform 3: Multi-disciplinary Community Databases
Acting Leader: Brendon Bradley

This platform fosters the contribution to, and utilisation of, existing community databases, as well as enabling the development of new multi-disciplinary databases for transformative research.


Technology Platform 4: Computational Simulation and Visualisation
Leader: Brendon Bradley
Deputy Leader: Christopher McGann

This platform provides computational workflows to connect the multi-disciplinary research activities within QuakeCoRE and to provide a means by which research results can be understood in terms of their wider impacts on earthquake resilience.


Special Projects

Special projects are major externally-funded research programmes which are aligned with the QuakeCoRE mission, as well as its core values and culture. 

 
Special Project 1: Spatially-distributed Infrastructure
Leader: Liam Wotherspoon
Deputy Leader: Roger Fairclough
Industry Representative: Roger Fairclough, Neoleaf

This project is a joint research programme with the National Science Challenge 10: Resilience to Nature's Challenges. The program is developing tools to assess the performance of spatially-distributed infrastructure networks subject to extreme natural hazards.