Over the course of nearly 60 years in the industry, we’ve contributed a lot to developing and validating the codes that govern engineering work. While the code is the base line we always start from, we also realise that simple code compliance – applied with a ‘one size fits all’ approach – might not actually answer our clients’ needs. That’s where performance based design comes in.

We’re experts at exploring your brief to identify what you’re trying to achieve. Then, we apply our own custom-built technology to determine the performance standards the design needs to demonstrate. Holmes Consulting’s powerful Non-Linear Time History Analysis is some of the most advanced available anywhere in the world, giving us a clearer picture of a structure’s likely performance in extreme events. The ultimate result we’re aiming for is a structure that not only adheres to code requirements, but also delivers performance when you need it most.

Over thousands of projects of all shapes and sizes, our philosophy and supporting technology has helped deliver performance based designs right across New Zealand, in the USA, Europe and the Middle East. For example, using this approach, we’ve been able to develop low damage designs geared towards delivering swifter re-occupancy and continuity in the event of an earthquake. Performance based design is something we’ve put a lot of time into developing, refining, and applying – and we love to bring the weight of our knowledge and resources to bear on structural projects.

Performance based analysis
The Holmes Consulting philosophy of innovation in structural design has required innovation in structural analysis. Projects such as Union House base isolation, Parliament Strengthening, Coopers Lybrand and the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, were designed using non-linear analysis techniques as part of the evaluation procedure.  We perform this type of analysis in-house using proprietary software.

Over the last two decades, performance based design has become favoured for the evaluation and strengthening of existing buildings to resist earthquake loads.  This type of design uses similar analysis techniques to the ones we use, so the in-house software has been adapted to incorporate the requirements of performance based evaluation:

PerformanceBasedAnalysis2014PART1
PerformanceBasedAnalysis2014PART2
PerformanceBasedAnalysis2014PART3
PerformanceBasedAnalysis2014PART4

Analysis in action – animations showing building response under simulated earthquake loads

Analysis in action 1
Analysis in action 2
Analysis in action 3
Analysis in action 4
Analysis in action 5