Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
03 Jun 1993, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Abstract
Investigation of collapse of a five storey residential building in Calcutta is described. The failure occurred soon after construction but, fortunately, before occupation. Detailed soil investigation revealed that a bowl-shaped depression, 5. 5 m deep, existed in the collapsed building area which was subsequently filled up. The foundation raft was placed 5.325 m below ground level and the subsequent filling put an overburden pressure of varying magnitude resulting in non-uniform pressure on the subsoil. This was apparently not considered in design. Factor of safety was found to be low against bearing capacity failure and the building tilted towards the heavier load concentration. This caused over-stressing, in structural elements which gradually failed and ultimately led to the collapse of the building.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
3rd Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1993 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
Som, N. N. and Sahu, R. B., "Investigation of Collapse of an Apartment Building Due to Differential Filling" (1993). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 8.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/3icchge/3icchge-session08/8
Investigation of Collapse of an Apartment Building Due to Differential Filling
St. Louis, Missouri
Investigation of collapse of a five storey residential building in Calcutta is described. The failure occurred soon after construction but, fortunately, before occupation. Detailed soil investigation revealed that a bowl-shaped depression, 5. 5 m deep, existed in the collapsed building area which was subsequently filled up. The foundation raft was placed 5.325 m below ground level and the subsequent filling put an overburden pressure of varying magnitude resulting in non-uniform pressure on the subsoil. This was apparently not considered in design. Factor of safety was found to be low against bearing capacity failure and the building tilted towards the heavier load concentration. This caused over-stressing, in structural elements which gradually failed and ultimately led to the collapse of the building.
