Tolerance of Structures to Settlement

The study is limited to structural distress caused by the settlement of the foundation. A summary of conclusions and warnings found in the literature indicates little disagreement on the range of settlement needed to harm a structure. Some previous studies have resulted in empirical rules for correlating angle of slope between adjacent supports and the incidence of cracking. Similar rules are found in the building standards of the USSR. The conclusion is drawn that considerably more observational data is needed to permit formulation of rules to fix the limits of settlement and of slope resulting from differential settlement, but the rate of settlement as well as the type of structure have important effects on any such rules. A bibliography of pertinent literature is given.