Seismic isolation of a printing press in Wellington, New Zealand
Date
1992-09-30Authors
Dowrick, D. J.
Babor, J.
Cousins, W. J.
Skinner, R. I.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This paper describes the seismic hazard near the Wellington Fault in Petone, and the measures taken to protect a new printing press made of brittle cast iron against earthquake attack. The printing press, owned by Wellington Newspapers, was located just 20 m from the Wellington Fault. Mounting the specially designed building housing the press on a seismic isolation system, lead-rubber bearings, reduced the estimated loads and deflections on the press by a factor of 8-10 compared with the non-isolated case. As a result the press should suffer only modest damage in earthquake shaking somewhat stronger than that required by the New Zealand earthquake code for the design of buildings.