Cutting-edge Earthquake Research On Old Whirokino Bridge South of Foxton

The decommissioned Whirokino Bridge south of Foxton will give scientists and engineers around the world invaluable new insights into the strength of key infrastructure during seismic events.

The 90-year-old bridge on SH1 was recently replaced by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency with a wider $70m structure over the Manawatū River and Moutoa floodplain.Deconstruction of the old bridge is giving Dr Lucas Hogan from the University of Auckland an unprecedented opportunity to do “real-life” testing of how a long bridge behaves in an earthquake.

“We have done a lot of bridge testing in the lab, and this is a unique opportunity to put a real bridge through its paces and even push it to failure,” says Dr Hogan.His esearch is the result of a ground-breaking partnership between a multitude of government, academic and corporate organisations.

The Whirokino research project has been planned for two years.It is funded by the Earthquake Commission and QuakeCoRE and is being carried out in cooperation with Waka Kotahi as the owner of the bridge.Dr Hogan had to wait until the Covid-19 lockdown was lowered to level 3 to join his colleague Dr Max Stephens in their new extended bubble to start the first phase of the research.