SEF Fall Lecture: November 13, 2012

The Christchurch Earthquake

Please join us for the Fall, 2012 SEF lecture on the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake. 

The 4 September 2010 Darfield and 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquakes devastated the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and surrounding areas. The extensive damage and collapse of modern buildings as well as the older building stock has caused public distrust of existing buildings and left the structural engineering community scrambling to explain why and how this happened on such a large scale. This presentation will review the processes used to evaluate a building’s condition after an earthquake and the need to make rapid but accurate determinations. Case studies of many of the notable collapses and structural failures observed in the Canterbury earthquake sequence will explore the technical causes of the failures and how the design industry is adapting to address these in the future. Political and practical hurdles in retrofit design and repair of existing buildings will also be discussed.

Nick Hyatt, S.E., P.E., MASCE, is a Vice President at Thornton Tomasetti, Inc. Mr. Hyatt received a B.S. and an M.S. degree in structural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).  Based in Thornton Tomasetti’s  Chicago office, Mr. Hyatt is currently the group leader in their Christchurch New Zealand office supporting the rebuild effort. His sixteen year career has focused on the investigation of structural failures and construction problems.    

This Lecture will provide 1 hour of Continuing Education Credit.