Category: Blog

Understanding your building’s Importance Level under AS1170.4 is critical to achieving seismic compliance without unnecessary complexity or overengineering. Each Importance Level—from IL1 to IL4—comes with its own set of design obligations that can impact everything from anchor selection to certification pathways. In this post, we break down why getting this right matters, using our work on the Lyell McEwin Hospital Expansion as a real-world example of how smart, IL4-compliant design can meet strict performance requirements while remaining efficient and buildable.

Incorrect installation of AS5216 seismic screw anchors can compromise structural integrity and lead to costly failures. Our latest blog post breaks down the most common installation mistakes—including overdriving, incorrect hole depth, and stripped concrete—and provides practical solutions to ensure compliance and load capacity. Learn how to avoid these errors and install screw anchors correctly for safe and reliable performance.

A recent air leakage test on one of our Passive House projects achieved 0.24 ACH@50 (air changes per hour at 50 pascals pressure), well under the 0.6 ACH@50 required to achieve Passive House certification! Compared to the typical range of 5.0 to 15.0 ACH@50 for houses constructed under the energy efficiency requirements of NCC2019, this…

Significant challenges were encountered in the design of this 100m tall Ø600mm pipe riser, with the initial 1000kN pipe anchor loads (gravity + bellows thrust) exceeding the limits that could be supported by the existing concrete building core. A detailed analysis of pipe thermal effects, construction sequencing and design building movements enabled a reduction in the…

Seismic design, without bracing! AS1170.4 provides simple, static force-based methods for determining earthquake design actions on building services. But there’s nothing static about an earthquake. Seismic ground motions are dynamic events that shake buildings in dynamic ways, and the standard allows for the design of buildings and building services using dynamic methods. Dynamic analysis of suspended…