Seismic Engineering Grows Rapidly

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31678, 14 May 1968, Page 16

Seismic Engineering Grows Rapidly

A seminar on seismic problems in structural engineering has attracted 60 engineers to the University of Canterbury this week, including one from India and one from New Guinea.

Both said that New Zealand’s reputation in earth-quake-resistant engineering commanded world-wide respect. Mr N. R. Tembe, a consulting engineer, came specially from Bombay. Southern India was supposed to be an earth-quake-free zone, he said, but a shake of force 7.5 on December 11 last year had given a tremendous fillip to seismic engineering. With buildings up to 26 storeys now planned, there were insistent demands for protection. Mr Tembe said he heard of the seminar by accident because be wrote to New Zealand for advice and got a prompt reply mentioning this gathering. Mr R. Frame, a consulting engineer from Port Moresby, said New Guinea was in the wprst earthquake belt in the Pacific. It did not matter while single-storey structures were general but, with a 14-storey office block recently erected and several international hotels planned, seismic engineering became critical.

New Guinea was leaping ahead as one of the last primitive outposts for tourists and as a country becoming internationally prominent in the timber trade.

Mr J. P. Rollings, of Wellington, chairman of the earthquake engineering consultants' group in the New Zealand Institution of En-

gineers, said this was the biggest such meeting since the world conference in Wellington in 1966. Even since then, engineering to resist earthquakes had developed fantastically. It was now possible to use reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete, reinforced blockwork, and other materials for tall buildings provided the proper techniques were used. Earlier, earthquakeresistant engineering had been described as providing inadequate structures from insufficient knowledge. This seminar was attacking practical problems rather than seeking theoretical knowledge, Mr Boilings said.