Location
New York, New York
Date
14 Apr 2004, 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Abstract
In the mid-1920s, a 26-room mansion fashioned after a 16th Century Scottish castle, was built south of Denver, Colorado atop a large mesa. Although significant portions of the mesa were capped with a hard, relatively intact conglomerate rock formation, the outer edges were either missing or fractured into blocks and underlain by weaker claystone. Since its construction, portions of the conglomerate capstone have shifted, causing settlement and lateral movement of the outer parts of the residence. As part of recent renovation work, a comprehensive evaluation of foundation conditions was conducted to evaluate the cause of past structural movements and to develop a plan to stabilize the structure. This effort included the delineation of individual portions of conglomerate caprock supporting the structure, characterization of the nature and continuity of underlying soil and rock, and measurement of the direction of structural movements. Following an evaluation of this data, an underpinning program involving the use of micropiles was designed and installed to stabilize the individual conglomerate blocks, and to provide more stable permanent foundation support for the structure.
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
Niehoff, James W., "Stabilization of a Historic Structure Founded on an Unstable Mesa" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 3.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session01/3
Stabilization of a Historic Structure Founded on an Unstable Mesa
New York, New York
In the mid-1920s, a 26-room mansion fashioned after a 16th Century Scottish castle, was built south of Denver, Colorado atop a large mesa. Although significant portions of the mesa were capped with a hard, relatively intact conglomerate rock formation, the outer edges were either missing or fractured into blocks and underlain by weaker claystone. Since its construction, portions of the conglomerate capstone have shifted, causing settlement and lateral movement of the outer parts of the residence. As part of recent renovation work, a comprehensive evaluation of foundation conditions was conducted to evaluate the cause of past structural movements and to develop a plan to stabilize the structure. This effort included the delineation of individual portions of conglomerate caprock supporting the structure, characterization of the nature and continuity of underlying soil and rock, and measurement of the direction of structural movements. Following an evaluation of this data, an underpinning program involving the use of micropiles was designed and installed to stabilize the individual conglomerate blocks, and to provide more stable permanent foundation support for the structure.
