Dr. Clark Hyland

Chartered Structural Engineer

Clark is a Chartered Structural Engineer with specialist analytical and forensic engineering skills in fatigue and fracture. He is an approved by Auckland Council as an author of Producer Statements for High Risk Work such as buildings over 10 storeys high for New Zealand Building Code Clauses B1 Structure, B2 Durability and C6 Structural Stability in Fire.

During the first decade of his career he practiced across a broad range of structural engineering design, construction observation and contract administration roles in projects ranging from residential housing to multi-storey buildings and bridging in New Zealand and overseas. In 1996 he became the Manager of the Steel Structures Analysis Service at the New Zealand Heavy Engineering Research Association. During that time he prepared over 120 preliminary multi-storey structural steel design options for consultants and builders, developed design guides and ran seminars around New Zealand for consulting engineers and quantity surveyors on steel structure design and construction. In 2004 he was employed to manage Steel Construction New Zealand Inc. In 2009 after gaining his PhD in the Assessment of Ductile Endurance of Earthquake Resisting Steel Members with a fracture mechanics focus, he returned to consulting engineering at Hyland Consultants Ltd.
He joined the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering building damage assessment mission to Padang after the M7.6 earthquake there in September 2009. During that time the traffic light damage triage system developed by Dave Brunsdon was trialled. In February 2010 he visited Chile with the NZSEE reconnaissance team to glean learnings from the aftermath of the large M8.8 Maule Earthquake.
Immediately following the Darfield Earthquake in early September 2010 he was engaged by the Department of Building and Housing to assist in the implementation of the at system for the Christchurch City Council. Later that month following the collapse of Stadium Southland during a heavy snowfall he was engaged by the Department to investigate its collapse with fellow structural engineer Ashley Smith. Then in February 2011 he was asked to undertake preliminary investigations into the collapse of the stair in the Forsyth Barr building, the reinforced concrete remnants of the PGC Building collapse and undertake a collapse investigation with Ashley Smith of the CTV Building collapse.
Since that time Clark has been engaged to help resolve on many specialised analytical and forensic assessments for clients. Often these have involved providing expert assistance to legal teams, building developers, body corporates. other consultants, builders or steel constructors going through dispute resolution processes.
These have included for example:
  1. Sequentially coupled thermal stress analyses of composite steel beams and post-tensioned flooring systems during fire using gas-time temperature inputs to determine structural deflection allowances in fire separation walls to maintain safe fire cell performance.
  2. Stress intensity analysis of potential cracks in high strength bolts during part-turn tensioning procedures.
  3. Hot spot stress analysis of a welded tube sign gantry structure to assess compliance with AASHTO Constant Amplitude Fatigue Limit criteria.
  4. Time History Analyses of a 20+ storey steel building with yielding Eccentrically Braced Frame active links to assess earthquake induced plastic strain development and compliance with ASME BPVC VIII.2-2021 triaxial strain limit criteria.
  5. Collapse of precast concrete panels during a high wind event.
  6. Fracture mechanics assessment of welds for compliance with the welding standard AS/NZS1554.1.
In addition Clark managed the certification and undertook the structural review aspects of bridge launching gantries and other equipment imported from Italy to build the Waterview Interchange in Auckland, the M4 motorway bridges in Sydney, the Toowoomba Viaduct and the Caulfield to Dandenong Grade separation overhead railway in Melbourne.