Damage of Reinforced Concrete Structure due to Severe Soil Expansion
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 16, Issue 1
Abstract
In Irbid City, Jordan, foundation designs made before 1983 were based on bearing capacity criteria with a limited knowledge of high shrink/swell soil problems. The use of wide and shallow foundation systems was generally the practice rather than the exception in this area. Lack of structural rigidity and insufficient dead load pressure of the foundation systems used in the Irbid area where soils of high shrink/swell are present often cause serious problems related to the performance of constructed facilities. This paper presents a case study typical of a severely cracked one-story reinforced concrete (RC) building constructed over the expansive clay of Irbid City. The building is founded on a mat foundation (solid RC structural slab) embedded at a shallow depth and bearing directly on expansive clay. It is unfortunate that the high shrink/swell potential of the foundation soil had not been recognized properly in the design stage. Based on field and laboratory investigations, remedial construction for the damaged building was proposed. The proposed remedial construction was performed, and more than 10 months have elapsed since the remedial work was completed, with the performance of the building in perfect condition.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
American Concrete Institute (ACI). (1995). “Building code requirements for structural concrete.” ACI 318-M95 and commentary, ACI 318 RM-95, Detroit.
Al-Shrief, W. (1986). “Water consumption of agricultural crops in Jordan.”Bulletin No. 41, Ministry of Agriculture, Amman, Jordan.
Chen, F. H. (1975). “Foundations on expansive soils.” Elsevier, Amsterdam, 113.
Lytton, R. L. (1972). “Design methods for mats on unstable soils,” Proc., 3rd Int. Conf. Material Technology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 170–177.
Tuncer, E. R., Basma, A. A., and Taqieddin, S. (1990). “Geotechnical properties of some selected Irbid clays.” Rep. 14/87, Jordan Univ. of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
Wary, W. K. (1978). “Development of a design procedure for residential and light commercial slabs on ground.” PhD thesis presented to Texas A&M Univ., College Station, Tex.
Williams, A. B., and Donaldson, G. W. (1980). “Building on expansive soils in South Africa: 1973–1980.” Proc., 4th Int. Conf. on Expansive Soils, Vol. 2, ASCE, New York, 834–844.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 13, 2001
Accepted: Oct 11, 2001
Published online: Feb 1, 2002
Published in print: Feb 2002
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.