NZ seismic invention a game changer in global construction

Ōtautahi - New Zealand is on the verge of becoming a world leader in low-cost and low-damage seismic engineering.

Dr Shahab Ramhormozian, who has just won the New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering annual award, has significantly improved and finetuned the revolutionary sliding hinge joint technology.

The senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) has continued the ground-breaking work by Dr Charles Clifton at University of Auckland and Dr Greg MacRae at the University of Canterbury.

Their research work was in response to the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes in the mid-1990s in which buildings suffered much more damage than expected.

Up until then, buildings were designed to save lives, but not able to deal with stronger earthquakes, which had a huge economic impact, like we also saw in Christchurch, says the winner of the 2022 Ivan Skinner Award, Dr Ramhormozian says.

Engineers and academics around the world have been quick to adopt and replicate the technology. 

 Auckland researchers have been working closely with their peers in Italy and China where the technology has been adopted and tested.

The Kiwi research and designs has prompted eight leading universities across Europe to launch a joint project and will soon start construction on the first building in Europe, using the new technology at the University of Salerno in Italy.

Aotearoa’s Earthquake Commission invests around $20 million a year in natural hazard research funding.