Abstract
Defining the basic determinants of the level of reliability with regards to the use of residential buildings and determining the function of the intensity of their characteristic defects are important issues concerning renovation strategy. The distribution of the exploitation time of residential buildings, the function of their reliability, and the distribution of the defect intensity of examined buildings are interdependent terms. Therefore, it can be assumed that the defect intensity of an object will be higher with an increase in its exploitation time. However, it is neither an increase reflecting the length of the building’s service life nor the value directly proportional to its age. The article presents a model and method of testing the defects and reliability of a representative group of traditional downtown residential buildings, which were erected in Wroclaw, Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A basic conclusion was drawn regarding the mechanism of damage of residential buildings: for the period of using the facility, in which the time of correct operation until failure has an exponential distribution, the average remaining time of failure-free operation is unchanged at any time. It was confirmed that the tested residential buildings, after a certain period of failure-free operation, fulfil their functions, just like new buildings. The optimal moment of renovation occurs after the end of the second period of operation, before the period of rapid wear. The study of the course of the damage intensity function over time reflects the wear process of a residential building in a representative sample of downtown residential buildings that were erected using traditional methods. Defining the average duration of the correct failure-free operation of an object by the reliability function, which determines the probability with which the correct operation time of an object will be longer than its age, has a practical application in the exploitation of a residential building and its components.
Highlights
The last dependence leads to an extremely important conclusion for the mechanism of the occurrence of defects in residential buildings: for the period of using a facility, in which the time of correct operation to damage has an exponential distribution, the average remaining time of failure-free operation is unchanged at any time
The adopted model and method of testing a representative group of downtown residential buildings with a traditional construction, which were erected at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, indicate that the age of the elements of old residential buildings is of secondary importance in the process of the intensity of loss of their serviceability value
No more than 30% of the element’s damage can be explained by the passage of time if we assume that the coefficient of determination is the measure of the adjustment of the mathematical models, which are tested in the nonlinear regression method
Summary
Damage is an event that involves the loss of serviceability of an element or building [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The exceeding of the limit state that is appropriate for the subsequent utility functions of individual elements of a residential building reduces their exploitation potential [11]. An element loses various utility functions when it reaches the serviceability limit state and enters the state that is defined in reliability theory as being defective (but fit for use). This state lasts until all of its functions exceed this limit state. The serviceability limit state is a contractual value, which depends on the adopted criteria
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