Standards New Zealand work in progress

Standards New Zealand (SNZ), the national standards body, provides an update on the progress of building related standards.

Published

NZS 1170.5: 2004 Structural design actions, Part 5: Earthquake actions – New Zealand was published in December 2004. It provides procedures for the determination of earthquake actions on structures in New Zealand. It gives the requirements for verification procedures, site hazard determination, the evaluation of structural characteristics, structural analysis for earthquake action effects, the determination and limits for deformations and the seismic design of parts of structures. Appendices cover aspects of ultimate limit state design and the requirements for material-specific structural design standards that can be used in conjunction with NZS 1170.5. Its publication completes the 1170 series of Standards for New Zealand. The other members of the series are AS/NZS 1170.0: 2002 General Principles, AS/NZS 1170.1: 2002 Permanent, imposed and other actions, AS/NZS 1170.2: 2002 and AS/NZS 1170.3: 2003 Wind actions. In Australia AS 1170.4 will be the earthquake actions part, but this has not yet been published.

The companion commentary 1170.5: 2004 Supp. 1 Structural design actions, Part 5: Earthquake actions – New Zealand Commentary was also published in December. It provides background to the various provisions in NZS 1170.5: 2004, suggests approaches that may satisfy the intent of the Standard and, for some provisions, describes differences between this and previous editions of the Standard. References are provided for further reading and these are given at the end of each section of the Commentary.

The 1170 series has been prepared with the intention that it will replace NZS 4203 as the New Zealand Building Code Verification Method for determining and applying the design actions for buildings.

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