Full-scale load testing of prefabricated combined floor of residential building built of the early 1950s

Abstract

A detailed full-scale survey of building structures was carried out as a part of scientific and technical support on changing the functional purpose of building premises built in the 1950s. The purpose of the technical condition survey was to assess the bearing capacity of structures and develop conditions for mechanical building safety. Special attention was paid to the study of floor-to-floor overlapping. Over a long period of operation, numerous changes were made to the original structural solution of the building. These changes transformed the design scheme of static work of structures, floors in particular. Due to the multifactorial and difficult-to-control conditions, it wasnt easy to determine the actual bearing capacity of the overlaps with the required degree of reliability using the existing calculation methods. Therefore, in order to confirm the proposed design assumptions, full-scale tests of the overlaps were carried out by loading, which confirmed their bearing capacity determined by the calculation. The conducted field tests made it possible to avoid expensive reinforcement of structures and extend the building life.