High-rise building subjected to excessive settlement of its foundation: a case study

Abstract

Purpose Differential settlement between foundations’ elements induces additional stresses in the structural elements. In general, the amount of settlement that a structure can undergo without distress is large, provided that the structure settles uniformly. However, based on the fact that the soil under the foundation may not be uniform in nature and the loads transferred from the superstructure to the foundation are variable, differential settlements between the foundation elements are expected. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the stresses induced in a typical ten-storey reinforced concrete building subjected to excessive differential settlement. Design/methodology/approach In this investigation, excessive differential settlement up to 75 mm is assigned to the center column on the ground floor that represents the most critical case. A three-dimensional finite element model is developed to perform structural analysis using the software SAP2000, and the nonlinear static pushover analysis is performed. Findings The results of this study show that the building behaves elastically up to 25 mm of differential settlement between its foundation elements, which agrees well with the recommendation given in design manuals. Beyond this value, significant inelastic response is observed in the lower floors and decreases gradually in the higher floors and accordingly, some members have consumed the factor of safety and are in the verge of failure. Originality/value Based on the results of this study, recommendations are made for better communication between the structure and the geotechnical engineers to either limit the differential settlements or incorporate these additional stresses during the design stage of the building. Furthermore, the results of the study can be used to recommend to building codes or design manuals to add a load component due to the anticipated differential settlements of the foundation.

Enhancing Building Resistance to Differential Settlement with Canadian Seismic Design Provisions

“…The effects of differential settlement on the magnitude of the bending moments, shear forces and stresses it generates in an RC frame building was further investigated by Lin et al (2015Lin et al ( , 2017. They reported that a frame building behaves elastically up to a differential settlement of 25mm and found that the downward displacement of the center column is the most critical case.…”

“…It was reported in Lin et al (2015Lin et al ( , 2017 that the settling column only affects the beams immediately attached to it. Therefore, only the four beams around column C-3 in the buildings are examined in this study.…”

“…This project is designed to complement a series of two papers published by Lin et al (2015Lin et al ( , 2017 that investigated the behavior of a ten-storey RC moderately ductile MRF building with a typical span length of six meters and a storey height of four meters subjected to the differential settlement of its foundation. Lin et al (2015) studied the elastic response of the building when it is subjected to a differential settlement of 25mm while Lin et al (2017) studied the inelastic behavior of the building when it experiences an excessive differential settlement of 75mm.…”

“…This project is designed to complement a series of two papers published by Lin et al (2015Lin et al ( , 2017 that investigated the behavior of a ten-storey RC moderately ductile MRF building with a typical span length of six meters and a storey height of four meters subjected to the differential settlement of its foundation. Lin et al (2015) studied the elastic response of the building when it is subjected to a differential settlement of 25mm while Lin et al (2017) studied the inelastic behavior of the building when it experiences an excessive differential settlement of 75mm. This project aims to expand the scope of these two research papers by investigating the behavior of low-rise buildings representative of the structures commonly built in Canada that are designed using the different Canadian seismic design provisions for ductile, moderately ductile and conventional MRF buildings with different span lengths.…”

Influence of Foundation Pit Excavation and Precipitation on Settlement of Surrounding Buildings

“…Given the current emphasis on the construction industry, many domestic and foreign research teams have begun to impact settlement building in-depth study. Lin [2] used a bottom center column to distribute an excessive differential settlement of up to 75 mm to assess the stresses caused by excessive differential settlement in a typical tenstory reinforced concrete building. e analysis of damage and the resulting management of the built environment often requires high costs due to the establishment of reliable predictive models and the amount of data required to define the most appropriate repair work [3].…”