Monitoring of interactions of a monumental historical complex located on an earth embankment

The Camaldolese Monastery was built in the seventeenth-century on a man-made hill raised on a Wigry lake is land in the north-eastern part of Poland. Over the following two hundred years, the Monastery buildings were subjected to destructive weathering processes and underwent significant demolition during the two World Wars. Subsequently, the complex was reconstructed and renewed. All the Monastery buildings were raised on two earth terraces varying in height from 6 to 8 m. The terraces were formed of crushed bricks and stone debris that filled up the underground structures built earlier. The hill is composed of different geotechnical layers and their influence on the stability of the whole hill, displacement and deformation of the buildings have been monitored. The results of the monitoring are presented in the paper. The thickness of backfilled soil layers varies from 1 to 5 m and an assessment of layer parameters is influencing the actual state and future renovation of the Monastery buildings. In 2004, the Monastery buildings were affected by dynamic forces of an earthquake that measured 5.3 on the Richter scale despite the fact that this region had never been subjected to any seismic hazards. As a result, larger than expected deformations of the sub-base caused excessive cracking of the buildings and destruction of existing water and sewage system

Possible defects in wood, wood parameters variability and some of its influence on quality of building structure

Paper specifies the wood-framed with sheathing construction including phases of realization and exploitation. Methods of investigation based on practice and theory has been employed where practical identification of processes and their phases were presented with theoretical description of structure deformation within the exploitation period. Obtained results of investigations are presented in the form of technologic and mechanic of structure diagrams for buildings with adequate algorithms of analysis. Paper presents practical systematic of construction stages, technological problems and hazards in respect of loading and construction technology with method of computation of vertical deformations of building. Paper presents evaluation of contribution of wood defects in response to loading in the wood-framed residential building in exploitation process. Location of knots, allocation of pith in the elements cross section, defects of slope of grain and influence of moisture decreasing is examined in the paper. The wood-framed with sheathing in the form of large panel or modular three dimensional 3D elements are the most often used technology. This kind of buildings are actually constructed up to four story as a multifamily or varying universal buildings like school, kid-garden or offices. Low dead load from 0.30 to 1.00 kN/m2 and its favorable proportion to the live load increase energy saving factor in realization and within the exploitation time. Low own weight of structure enables complete prefabrication of wall, floor and roof panels, improving quality of construction and shortening time of construction. Process of prefabrication, wide assortment and variety of factory production does not require time consuming processes and complicated moulds or shuttering indispensable in precast RC structural elements

Tests on full-scale and static analysis models of the wood-framed building stucture horizontaly loaded

This paper focuses on development of the high energy saving timber building and ecological technology protecting environment in civil engineering. Wood framed with sheathing, large panel structures became more popular building constructions in Poland last decade. Experimental tests and numerical analysis of panels and complete wood framed building have been taken into account. Typical two-story residential building was selected for test. Test of three dimensional (3D) whole building was conducted on the base of experimental investigations results of large panel similar to those used in building structure. Also adequate tests of materials and connections were accompanying of the whole structure investigations. Obtained results were adopted in numerical models elaborated for wall and floor panels and in 3D model of whole building. Load -displacements characteristics were acquired from tests and numerical models. The displacements computed from 3D numerical model were 10–20% higher than from experiment. Experimentally ob-tained lower displacements than those from analytical analysis are resulted from higher stiffness of wall system due to diaphragms interconnections, their common interaction and three-dimensional character of building structure. Presented research analyzed method of computation of internal forces in building as well in the range of engineering methods in the form of rigid beam scheme up to the advanced methods using 3D spatial model adopting FEM

Analytical model tracing deformations in multistorey large timber panel building

This paper deals with the deformation characteristics of wood-framed residential, small commercial and hotel buildings with sheathing. Recent building structures are based on large panel or modular technology, where elements in the form of diaphragms or modules are constructed in an industrial plant and then transported to the site for assembly. The document presents diagrams of building assembly and technologies for realization. The significant influence of excessive vertical deformations in multistorey wood-framed buildings on their performance and serviceability is underlined. These deformations are caused by different factors which are identified and analytically described. The paper outlines the analytically complex model for the evaluation and control of deformations in the design, construction and exploitation of multistorey wood-framed buildings. An example of the application of the proposed analytical model at the design stage concludes the paper