American Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2014, Vol. 2, No. 4, 136-142
Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajcea/2/4/3
© Science and Education Publishing
DOI:10.12691/ajcea-2-4-3
The Impact of Deep Foundations of Building Structures
on the Neighbouring Buildings – a Static Analysis
Czesław Miedziałowski, Damian Siwik
*
Institute of Civil Engineering, Bialystok Technical University, Białystok, Poland
*Corresponding author: d.siwik@o2.pl
Received July 18, 2014; Revised August 05, 2014; Accepted August 12, 2014
Abstract Deep foundations of buildings and their impact on neighbouring buildings is one of the most important
issues when planning a new facility. Whereas, the analyses of the threats often come down only to a simplified
evaluation of the building subsidence and to comparing them with the limit values. The paper presents the
methodologies for using the subsidence surface of the land behind the housing wall of the excavation to assess the
impact of additional displacements on the technical condition of facilities, through the determination of the
distribution and the values of stresses in the estimated structure.
Keywords: deep foundation, adjacent buildings, Finite Element Method, FEM
Cite This Article: Czesław Miedziałowski, and Damian Siwik, “The Impact of Deep Foundations of Building
Structures on the Neighbouring Buildings – a Static Analysis.” American Journal of Civil Engineering and
Architecture, vol. 2, no. 4 (2014): 136-142. doi: 10.12691/ajcea-2-4-3.
1. Introduction
The analysis of the impact of deep foundation of the
building (e.g. foundation in a deep excavation) on
neighbouring facilities requires the engineer/designer to
examine two basic static patterns:
- the phase of the excavation (Figure 1a) - due to the
relaxation of the excavation floor the displacement of soil
occurs, and thus of the objects in the vicinity,
- the phase of the operation of the building (Figure 1b)
– the preloading of the soil with the building results in
subsidence of the newly formed structure and of the
facility in its vicinity.
Figure 1. The implementation phases of the calculations in the analysis of the impact of a deep foundation of the building on the adjacent buildings: a)
phase of the excavation; b) phase of the operation of the building
Whereas, the deformation of the land, in the operation
phase of the building can occur both in the form of
subsidence and uplifts due to an earlier relaxation of the
excavation. The shape of the subsidence of displacements
behind the housing wall depends, among others, on the
depth of the excavation, the type of the casing used and its
static diagram [12].
The basic tool for the analysis of this type of issues is
currently the Finite Element Method (FEM) [24]. Whereas,
if the use of the numerical method, in the case of simple
two-dimensional systems does not cause many problems.
Then, in the case of three-dimensional issues, especially in
the case of interactive systems: a building-soil-
neighbouring buildings (Figure 2), there may appear
difficulties with equipment, which does not allow for the
analysis of such large computational tasks.
Due to the threat posed by a new implementation of the
facility with deep foundation on the existing buildings, the
issues of this type should be thoroughly analysed as early
as at the design stage of construction ([6,9,17]).