Distress Evaluation and Remediation for a High-Rise Building with Pile-Raft Foundation
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 28, Issue 4
Abstract
A high-rise building with pile-raft foundation suddenly experienced extraordinary settlements and seriously tilted after 6 years of use in Wenzhou, a city in southeastern China. Some investigations were conducted and several potential causal factors were analyzed to determine the cause of the distress. The results indicated that the inadequate bearing capacity of the pile foundation was the reason for the extraordinary settlement. Inappropriate structure type selection and structural arrangement made the building sensitive to earthquake-triggered loading and prone to tilt. Remedial measures were applied to address the causal factors identified. Because of the low bearing capacity of the pile foundation, unloading was first performed and then the pile foundation was strengthened using steel pipe piles driven by anchor bolts. To address the inappropriate structure type and arrangement, the building was retrofitted to resist earthquakes. Observation results showed that the remedial measures took effect and the settlement (and tilt) of the building was completely controlled.
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Acknowledgments
The research reported in this paper was supported by the Fund for Science and Technology Innovation Team of Ningbo (Grant No. 2011B81005). The writers wish to express their gratitude for this financial support. The suggestions and comments from the editors and reviewers that greatly improved the quality of this paper are also acknowledged.
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 28 • Issue 4 • August 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 3, 2012
Accepted: Jul 22, 2013
Published online: Jul 24, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Oct 12, 2014
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