Canterbury liquefaction research wins international honour

Canterbury liquefaction research wins international honour

A University of Canterbury (UC) academic’s work on liquefaction-induced land damage recovery and research following the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious international engineering awards.

The research paper, ‘Assessment of Liquefaction-Induced Land Damage for Residential Christchurch’ was named the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Outstanding Paper Award in San Francisco.

UC Civil and Natural Resources Engineering Professor Misko Cubrinovski was part of the team that produced the award-winning research.

“This is another great recognition for New Zealand engineers and researchers for their high-quality work associated with the Canterbury earthquakes,” Prof Cubrinovski says.

“The liquefaction impacts in Christchurch were unprecedented in scale and severity, and therefore new approaches were required in the assessment of residential land damage. A key contribution of the study is the transformation of a vast amount of data and observations into a novel methodology for engineering assessment of land. It is a great example of putting top-level research into practice.”

Tonkin + Taylor engineer Dr Sjoerd van Ballegooy, who was the main author of the research paper, says the insights that improved the understanding of liquefaction vulnerability were only possible through the collection of an extensive dataset by EQC and the collective contribution and generous collaboration of colleagues.

“The work was a massive team effort with significant contribution from Professor Misko Cubrinovski from the University of Canterbury, Professor Jonathan Bray from the University of California Berkeley, Professor Thomas O’Rourke from Cornell University and incredible support from Dr Hugh Cowan at EQC,” Dr van Ballegooy says.

The award is for outstanding contributions to earthquake hazard mitigation and is only awarded when a paper meets the threshold. This paper describes the land damage assessment process for Christchurch, the collection and processing of extensive data and observations related to liquefaction. It was published in the Earthquake Spectra (professional journal of EERI) Volume 30, Number 1, Feb 2014.

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