The long term instrumentation of the NMIT Arts building – Expan shear walls

The NMIT Arts building completed in 2011 in Nelson is the first three storey building using Expan type technology withenergy dissipating rocking shear walls constructed from laminated veneer lumber (LVL). The long term wall posttensioning, wall shortening, and concrete composite floor deformations have been evaluated in more detail from April2011 until October 2011. An overview is given of the building and overall instrumentation systems. Detail is given on thelong term instrumentation on-site data logging systems, data transfer, Auckland monitoring equipment, data extractionand development of the web interface. The instrumentation is temperature sensitive but gross variations are predictableand corrected. The data will provide further opportunity to investigate hygro-thermal response. Preliminary results forthe rate of compressive deformation were 0.4 to 1.4 mm in five months till mid October 2011 and the post tension loss isbetween 8 and 14.5 kN over the same five months. The post-tension losses since June 2010 vary from 13.9 to 20.6%.Keywords: monitoring, instrumentation, modern structures, LVL, connections