Seismic isolation of a printing press in Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

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.