Dutch consortium taps into New Zealand seismic expertise

Dutch consortium taps into New Zealand seismic expertise in Wellington – gas extraction causing earthquakes in Holland

Wellington’s worldwide reputation as the “epicenter” for seismic design and assessment has been reinforced with the arrival of a Dutch consortium in the city for a week of planning. They are available for media comment today.

Background

Over the last few years, areas in Holland have been experiencing increasing levels of seismic activity. This is related to gas extraction from the Groningen gas field, one of the largest in the world, which started in the 1960s and continues today with the financial contribution making up a large part of the Dutch GDP.,

The extraction of gas leads to a decrease of pressure within the reservoir, which is regarded to be the largest driving force behind the earthquakes.

The peak ground accelerations are expected to be in the order of 0.42g, which is similar to accelerations experienced in the Christchurch earthquakes. Initial seismological investigations have indicated that an earthquake event over 5 on the Richter scale is a possibility.

In January last year the Dutch government decided to cut output from the field because of the seismic activity.

Because Holland has never had to deal with earthquakes, they had no appropriate building codes to safeguard against such events, therefore they have had to change their legislation and building design codes to accommodate this.

It is estimated that anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 buildings in Groningen, the majority of which are unreinforced masonry, could be prone to collapse or damage from the increased activity.

Reason why the consortium is in Wellington

At present in Groningen, work is under way on building The Groninger Forum. The building includes a five-level basement with a 10-storey building above. It is intended as a cultural centre, housing a library, cinema and parts of the Groninger museum with a 390-lot carpark and 1500-lot bicycle park. The Forum, when completed, is expected to receive 1.6 million visitors a year.

The building cost is estimated at €71 miillion. Work so far has reached ground level but has stopped while the building consortium completes a seismic assessment of the building, and where required develops design details to improve its earthquake resistance.

This is a very complex building structurally because of its varying angles and different spaces. One possible solution that is being investigated is the use of abase isolation system to be introducted at the ground floor..

Why Aurecon?

The Dutch consortium (design is by ABT and construction by BAM) came to Aurecon because of the company’s international reputation for seismic design and assessment which includes:

· World leading technology being used on new buildings in Christchurch - Base isolation, sliding hinge technology and triple pendulum bearings

· The NMIT Arts and Media Building in Nelson, which incorporates the first of a new generation of Pres-Lam earthquake-resistant engineering technology.

· Base isolation of Parliament House

ENDS

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