Location
New York, New York
Date
14 Apr 2004, 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Abstract
The Sicilian earthquake of 13th December, 1990 was not very strong, but it caused considerable damages on structures, included a group of reinforced concrete buildings located in Augusta town on the east coast of Sicily (Italy). To evaluate the possibility to repair these buildings, an investigation on soil, structures and foundations was carried out. As some buildings were founded on piles, load tests on piles of the piled foundations were carried out. The site was well investigated by means of laboratory and in-situ tests including: standard penetration tests, cone penetration tests, dilatometer tests and seismic tests. To evaluate dynamic stress-strain geotechnical characteristics of soils resonant column tests were also performed. In the paper the experimental results of the load tests are analyzed with the aim to study the behavior of the piles subject to additional seismic loads. Load tests showed that the seismic actions have not damaged the effectiveness of the soil-pile system, as the bearing capacity of the piles appeared unchanged in spite of the additional loads applied on the structures during the earthquake. Nevertheless because the existing piled foundations were enable to carry on the additional horizontal seismic forces, a few number of piles were added.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Castelli, Francesco and Maugeri, Michele, "Analysis of the Behavior of the Piled Foundations of a Group of Earthquake Damaged Buildings" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 31.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session01/31
Analysis of the Behavior of the Piled Foundations of a Group of Earthquake Damaged Buildings
New York, New York
The Sicilian earthquake of 13th December, 1990 was not very strong, but it caused considerable damages on structures, included a group of reinforced concrete buildings located in Augusta town on the east coast of Sicily (Italy). To evaluate the possibility to repair these buildings, an investigation on soil, structures and foundations was carried out. As some buildings were founded on piles, load tests on piles of the piled foundations were carried out. The site was well investigated by means of laboratory and in-situ tests including: standard penetration tests, cone penetration tests, dilatometer tests and seismic tests. To evaluate dynamic stress-strain geotechnical characteristics of soils resonant column tests were also performed. In the paper the experimental results of the load tests are analyzed with the aim to study the behavior of the piles subject to additional seismic loads. Load tests showed that the seismic actions have not damaged the effectiveness of the soil-pile system, as the bearing capacity of the piles appeared unchanged in spite of the additional loads applied on the structures during the earthquake. Nevertheless because the existing piled foundations were enable to carry on the additional horizontal seismic forces, a few number of piles were added.
