Health monitoring and repair of a concrete shell roof structure

Abstract

A Corrugated doubly curved sea shell form Concrete Structure of 70 mm thickness is functioning for the past 21 years, with good performance in an institutional building entrance hall of size 30m x 30m. The shell having only boundary beam; sloping to one diagonal corner at + 5 m level, the adjacent two opposite diagonal corners at +7 m level and the peak corner is at + 9 m level, supported by columns and footings are resting on rock. The designer has not taken care for thermal resistance performance and not checked for earth quake, and there was no maintenance except periodical cement based whitewash. But, it has performed well in an earthquake of Richter magnitude 4.0 and performing well for the climatic temperature variations ranging from 19◦C to 44◦C during the 21 years of life span. Vertical micro cracks were noticed in the boundary beams. Roof Shell is fixed with the boundary beams. The roof top surface is fixed with weathering ceramic tiles of size 25 mm x 25 mm bonded using tile bond branded chemical adhesive, has opened bonding in a period of five years in the higher deformation area. Hence, the observation was started by performance based health monitoring. Suitable smart materials were applied for surface skin coat to take care of the positive and negative stress-strains and deformations due to temperature variations. The static and dynamic stability against overturning, sliding and gravity forces is ensured adequate. The integral action of the system and the Elastic and Inelastic ductile behaviour of the shell are observed to be higher.