New technology from UBC will help Vancouver high-rises endure major earthquakes

Vancouver high-rises aren't adequately protected under the current building code, says UBC structural engineering professor Dr. Tony Yang.

New technology created by University of British Columbia researchers could ensure the next generation of high-rise buildings in Vancouver are able to withstand major earthquakes.

The new structural system, discussed in research posted online by UBC May 13, was the subject of a project led by Dr. Tony Yang, a structural engineering professor in UBC’s faculty of applied science.

Yang, alongside his research team, built a model of a typical 30-storey Vancouver high-rise and subjected it to simulations of the shakes and tremors expected if a large-scale natural disaster were to hit B.C.

“We developed a one-fifth-scale (model) of a 30-storey building, about six storeys high, and we tested it in one of the largest shaking table facilities there is,” says Wang.

The experiment, carried out at the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering in Shanghai, involved the largest ever model of a concrete-core structure being tested on a shake table, marking a world first for seismic researchers.

The new technology utilises dampers, outriggers and rocking mechanisms to allow the building to absorb and dissipate the earthquake energy, as opposed to resisting it and putting demand on the building’s foundation.

“It’s like those shock absorbers you put in your cars,” explains Wang.

Wang says researchers looked to the 2011 earthquake that ravaged New Zealand’s city of Christchurch, killing 185 people and causing widespread damage, as an example of what demolition and financial loss could occur if buildings are not adequately protected.

Vancouver, too, is in an “extremely high seismic zone” he says, and many of its residents are aware of the mighty “Big One” that is expected to hit the Cascadia fault line, running from Northern California to southern British Columbia.

“This pocket where we already have known faults is capable of generating a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. For people who are not in the earthquake engineering field, magnitude 5.0 and magnitude 6.0 earthquakes are when we start seeing them in the news. Sometimes even magnitude 4.0,” he says.

Most buildings within Vancouver are currently being designed to a code which is in place to protect the lives of the occupants, but not the life of the building. If buildings continue to be built to the current code, they will be “really badly damaged” if a large-scale disaster were to occur, says Yang.

“But this newer generation technology, if we use it, could mean buildings are damage-free. People can walk away with protection to their life and also have financial capability. Most of the people here, our generation at least, have all their finances tied up in the residence,” he says.

“So now, more than just protecting people’s lives, we’re protecting the next most important thing - their financial investments, which is their homes.”

The system hasn’t yet been employed but Yang says he hopes to work with the City of Vancouver and engineering firms to introduce it into residential and commercial building projects moving forward.

“We have demonstrated that the technology works, and it can be readily implemented into any project from here on out,” he says.