The Role of Geotechnical Monitoring at Design of Foundation Structures and their Verification – Part 2

Abstract

The main aim of the article is demonstrating successful design of spread foundations of a commercial centre building, where geotechnical monitoring allows us to check design efficiency and calculate reliability in comparison with real vertical deformation of building. Introduction to the case study area and building structure and foundations was done in previously published first part of the article in which engineering geological conditions were described. There was also presented a comparison of calculated vertical settlement of selected footings with the real geodetic measurement provided during construction time till the period of two years’ operation time after completion of civil works. Geotechnical engineers do not have many opportunities to evaluate their designs, especially when everything passes successfully. Our presented case study is one of the examples, which could be evaluated from the point of view of reliability index of design adjusted with real geodetic measurement. Index of reliability of selected foundations was calculated by deterministic probability methods. In order to evaluate thousands of statistical data combinations, programing tool in Python language was developed for batch processing calculation of vertical displacement of foundation in Plaxis software. Discussion part of the article contains the actual state of reliability theory in structural standards in Europe.

Keywords

• geotechnical monitoring
• reliability index
• batch processing
• 3d fem model
• probability of failure