Issue |
E3S Web of Conf.
Volume 382, 2023
8th International Conference on Unsaturated Soils (UNSAT 2023)
|
|
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Article Number | 07005 | |
Number of page(s) | 5 | |
Section | Foundations | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202338207005 | |
Published online | 24 April 2023 |
Behaviour of a building foundation on unsaturated expansive soil
Dep. Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
* Corresponding author: tika@civil.auth.gr
The paper presents a case study of the behaviour of a building foundation on expansive unsaturated clay. The load-bearing masonry building started exhibiting severe cracking in its superstructure, immediately after its completion around 1950. Despite the interventions, the problems continued to exist sixty years later. In the context of identifying the causes of these problems, the paper presents the results of the laboratory tests conducted on the expansive clay in order to estimate its swelling pressure and also understand its behaviour. It is shown that the seasonal variation of the water content of the foundation soil, combined with the intrusion of the root system of the nearby trees at the level of the foundation, subjected the soil to wetting-drying cycles, resulting in its corresponding swelling-shrinking and consequently the settlement of the building. Finally, the proposed countermeasures for the solution of problems are presented, which aimed mainly in minimizing the variation of the moisture of the soil around and at the foundation of the building.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2023
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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