Engineering Structures 32 (2010) 18141820

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Case study: Damage of an RC building after a landslideinspection, analysis

and retrofitting
P. Tiago a,b , E. Jlio c,d,
a

EC+A Projectos Lda, Coimbra, Portugal

Civil Engineering Department, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal

ISISE Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, Portugal

Civil Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, Portugal

article

info

Article history:
Available online 5 March 2010
Keywords:
Damage
Building
Landslide
Inspection
Retrofitting
Robustness

abstract
In 2000, due to a substantial landslide, the reinforced concrete (RC) structure of a residential building
located in Coimbra, Portugal, was severely damaged. The first two levels of three columns were completely
destroyed and, as a result, part of the building supported by these, with a dimension in plant of 9.5
6.7 m2 , became a 7.0 m span cantilever with 12 stories.
In this paper, the authors describe the following: the accident; the preliminary assessment of
structural conditions; the immediate intervention; the strategy adopted to consolidate the damaged
structure; the repair and strengthening works; the loading procedure of the rebuilt part of the structure;
and the finishing operations. Some final remarks are also presented, including a proposal for robustness
analysis.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In Portugal, the years between 1970 and 1995 were characterized by a considerably low quality of the construction sector. The
main reasons contributing to this reality are the demographic migration from rural to urban areas that started in the beginning of
this period and the 1974 revolution that gave rise to the present
Portuguese democratic system. These two situations combined together led to an abnormal increase of construction associated to
an equally peculiar reduction of quality standards in construction
materials as well as in construction methods.
At that time, in Portugal, residential buildings were generally
designed and built adopting a structure of precast prestressed
concrete beam and hollow clay block floors, with a cast-in-place
concrete compressive layer, supported by reinforced concrete (RC)
plane frames. Non-structural clay masonry walls were used both
as partitioning walls and as external perimeter walls. In the latter
situation, these were built as cavity walls, being therefore much
thicker than the inner walls.

Corresponding address: ISISE Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in

Structural Engineering, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Department of Civil
Engineering, Rua Luis Reis Santos(Polo II), 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal. Tel.: +351
239797258; fax: +351 239797259.
E-mail address: ejulio@dec.uc.pt (E. Jlio).
0141-0296/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2010.02.018

As regards the structural design, it can be stated that Portuguese

codes have always been of high quality, at least for concrete
structures. This is due to an important research activity developed
at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) and also to
the fact that Portuguese codes for reinforced concrete structures
are generally based on CEB provisions.
This paper describes the response of a residential building
erected in the beginning of the 1980s in Coimbra, Portugal,
subjected to an unforeseen eventthe impact caused by a
landslide, and describes how it was retrofitted. Lastly, some
remarks are presented and a possible approach to enhance the
robustness of this type of building is proposed.
2. Description of the accident
The year 2000 was an unusually rainy year. Just three days
before the new millennium, at 19:00 h, a substantial landslide
occurred, causing severe damage in the RC structure of a 16-story
residential building, erected in the beginning of the 1980s in
Coimbra, Portugal (Fig. 1(a)). The first two levels of three columns
were completely destroyed and, as a result, the rear body of
the building supported by these, with a dimension in plant of
9.5 6.7 m2 , became a 7.0 m span cantilever with 12 stories
(Fig. 1(b)). However, the damage could have been much more
severe if the flow of that significant mass of soil and debris had
not been damped by part of the 2-story parking garage located on
the buildings backyard that completely vanished (Fig. 1(a)).

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Fig. 1. (a) Rear (West) faade of the building, a few days after the accident. (b) Detail of the total collapse of the outer columns of the damaged rear body of the building.

Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the struttie system that materialized after the
accident.

The building was evacuated a few hours after the accident and,
at 12:00 h the next day, a visual inspection was carried out, mainly
focused on the damaged rear body. On the outer masonry walls,
no significant anomalies were identified. Inside, a few thin cracks
distributed on the masonry walls were observed and larger cracks,
with a maximum width of 2 mm, concentrated at the corners of the
openings, were detected.
3. Preliminary assessment of the structural conditions
The observed low level of damage was attributed to the joint
behavior of the RC structure with the outer (non-structural)
masonry walls that allowed a struttie system to materialize
in order to resist the gravity loads. More specifically, in the
damaged part of the building, the loads previously supported
by the destroyed columns became equilibrated by compression
stresses (struts) at the outer masonry walls and by tension stresses
(ties) at the slabs (Fig. 2). In the remaining part of the building,
this system originated: a tension resultant force at the top slab; a
compression resultant force at the bottom slab; and an additional
compression at the existing foundations (Fig. 2).
In order to assess the safety of the damaged body, it was
necessary to quantify the stress state in the resulting structural

system. This represented a major difficulty due to the existence of

two sets of openings in both lateral walls. Therefore, and since a
fast response was requested, it was decided to build a plane linear
elastic finite elements model of these walls, including the columns
common to the rest of the building. The RC structure was modeled
using linear elements and the masonry walls were simulated
with shell elements assuming adequate geometric and material
properties. Namely, the North outer masonry walls, presenting
larger openings, were assumed to be made of two 25 mm layers
of mortar and a 70 mm layer of solid equivalent clay bricks, the
latter corresponding to the effective width of the clay bricks, i.e.,
excluding the voids. To this element, with a total thickness of
120 mm, an equivalent Youngs modulus was attributed, based
on an experimental study [1] conducted with similar mortar and
clay bricks. Given the facts that (a) for mortar, a Youngs modulus
of 3 GPa was found and, for clay bricks, the corresponding value
was 10 GPa; (b) extrapolating these values from the mentioned
research study [1] to the present case study comprises some
uncertainty; and (c) it would be useful to evaluate the sensitiveness
of results to this parameter, it was decided to conduct a parametric
analysis, varying the equivalent Youngs modulus between 3 and
10 GPa. The effect of the remaining part of the building on the
model was considered, assuming the nodes at the boundary to be
horizontally restrained.
From the 2D numerical analysis (Fig. 3(a)), it was possible
to conclude that (1) the finite element approach validated the
hypothesis of the struttie model behavior; (2) the stress state in
the lateral masonry walls presented values ranging from 2 MPa
to 2 MPa; (3) at the lower levels, concentration zones of principal
tension stresses appeared at the corners of the openings with
values up to 4 MPa; and (4) the prediction of the maximum
deflection at the bottom level was between 3 and 8 mm. Since these
results were in agreement with what was observed on site, this first
approach was considered valid and the immediate intervention
was planned based on it. Later, 3D finite element models were also
developed and results (Fig. 3(b)) corroborated those of this first 2D
modeling, although with some minor differences.
The original project was also analyzed. It is relevant to mention
that actions were quantified according to the 1961 RSEP [2], the
Portuguese code on actions for buildings and bridges, and to
the 1967 REBA [3], the Portuguese code on reinforced concrete
structures, based on the 1963 CEB Guidelines for Contractors [4].
These codes already considered ultimate and service limit states as
design criteria, instead of the traditional criteria, based on safety
stresses. Nevertheless, the following relevant differences between
these codes and the corresponding modern Eurocodes (EC), namely
EC 0 [5], EC 1 [6], EC 2 [7] and EC 8 [8], can be identified in the
scope of the present case study: (1) the combinations of actions

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P. Tiago, E. Jlio / Engineering Structures 32 (2010) 18141820

Fig. 3. Stress results of the finite element analysis. (a) 2D model: Minimum principal stresses, on the left, and maximum principal stresses, on the right, both in MPa. (b) 3D
model: Maximum principal stresses in MPa.

for seismic design situations according to RSEP [2] lead to lower

values (approximately 50%) compared to EC 8 [8]; nevertheless,
it should be mentioned that, in the original project, it is stated
that this situation was considered to be more unfavorable than
the one having the wind as the leading variable action; and
(2) second-order effects are considered in REBA only locally, i.e.,
without considering the overall sway behavior of the structure [3];
thus columns would present higher reinforcement ratios, at least,
if designed according to EC 2 [7]. Moreover, concerning the
buildings erection, from the observation of damaged elements it
was concluded that the connections were poorly accomplished
and, although in the original project solid slabs were adopted, the
contractor decided to replace these by prestressed concrete beam
and hollow clay block floors.
4. Immediate intervention
First of all, it should be stressed that the accident described had
a major psychological impact on Coimbras inhabitants, in general,
and on the buildings residents, in particular. Therefore, there was
a considerable pressure from public opinion to have a fast and
reliable retrofitting intervention.
The 2D numerical analysis indicated that the structure was not
at risk of imminent collapse. As mentioned above, at the outer
masonry walls maximum tension stresses of approximately 4 MPa
were located at the openings corners (where cracks appeared)
and maximum compression stresses ranging between 3 and 5 MPa
were identified. In the study [1] mentioned above, faade walls
similar to the walls of the building analyzed here were tested in
compression until failure, reaching ultimate values in the order
of 13 MPa. Although the acting forces in these two cases did
not have the same direction, given the significant differences in
the corresponding values, the safety of the walls was assumed.
Moreover, it was also assumed that the access to the damaged
zones, corresponding to approximately more 15 kN per story (5%
load increase), was still admissible concerning the walls.
In relation to the slabs, given the need to have a fast solution
and since the 3D model was being built, the safety check was based
on simple calculations. According to these, the maximum tension
resultant at the slabs was approximately 600 kN. Considering that

the ties (of the struttie system) were materialized by 1 m of

slab width (thus by three precast prestressed concrete beams)
below each outer wall combined with two peripheral RC beams,
and taking into account a computed axial strength reserve of,
respectively, 2 3 30 = 180 kN and 2 350 = 700 kN, totalizing
880 kN, the safety of the slabs was also assumed.
Finally, regarding the foundations, it was estimated that with
the accident the outer columns of the main body of the building
became subjected to a 50% load increase. Nevertheless, according
to the RC code effective when the building was designed, REBA [3],
the characteristic values of both self-weight and imposed loads
are multiplied by 1.5 in a fundamental combination of actions and
variable action is considered in all stories. For this reason, following
the accident, neither these columns nor the respective foundations
were submitted to loads above the design values. Furthermore, the
visual inspection conducted immediately after the accident did not
reveal signs of settlements at the foundations or damage at the
walls.
Following the analysis described above, it was decided to
undertake an immediate intervention from the inside, consisting in
applying a provisional shoring system, aiming to reduce or at least
to hold up the increase of the stress state of the masonry walls.
This procedure also presented the advantage of being extremely
simple. Extensible steel post shores were applied at some points
in the interior and wooden bars were positioned in the openings
(Fig. 4(a)).
Time evolution of the cracks widths was registered at some
locations, selected between those presenting a pattern more
in agreement with the new structural system. As an example,
Fig. 4(b) shows the crack at the corner of the window presented in
Fig. 4(a). The corresponding daily record of the crack width was the
following: 1.0 mm, at 11:30 h on December 29; 1.0 mm, at 14:00 h
on December 30; and 1.0 mm, at 16:00 h on December 31. In this
case, as in the remaining cases, it was observed that major cracks
did not increase. In fact, only new and much smaller cracks could
be noticed with time. For this reason, and also for security reasons,
it was decided to stop monitoring cracks, just three days after the
accident.
At the outer walls, all cracks were painted (Fig. 5). Mapping the
cracks had the major goal of facilitating the localization of these
after the retrofitting operations, i.e., after closing them.

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Fig. 4. (a) Provisional shoring system applied inside. (b) Crack width monitoring during the first three days after the accident.

Fig. 5. Mapping cracks on the outer walls.

5. Strategy adopted for consolidation

The immediate intervention referred to represented only
a residual increase on the structure safety. Therefore, it was
decided to proceed with a more substantial shoring organized
in two phases. First, a self-equilibrated prestressing system was
conceived and applied with the intention of consolidating the
damaged body of the building, thus allowing the safe removal of
debris in the accident zone. Then, with the area below the 12 stories
being cantilever free, a second shoring system materialized with
five steel shores was planned and applied.
The prestressing system was intended to suspend the bottom
part of the cantilever from the top level of the damaged rear

body using prestressing strands (Fig. 6(a)). This solution, besides

its simplicity, presented the additional advantage of being selfequilibrated. In fact, it was relevant not to increase loads at the
foundations since reliable data concerning the building footings
was not available. A steel beam was placed on the top slab and two
prestressing strands were anchored to it (Fig. 6(b)) with a prestress
force of approximately 300 kN. This value is mainly justified by
the urgency in applying the designed consolidating system, since
the two S1600/1800 prestressing strands with a cross-section of
1.5 cm2 were adopted since they were available. Furthermore, the
manufacturer recommended that the applied stress did not exceed
1000 MPa, thus giving 300 kN. It should be added that minimizing
stresses on the top storys slab was also a concern. For this reason,
extensible steel post shores were also applied on both stories
below, aiming to distribute the linear load between these three top
stories. At both bottom corners of the cantilever, steel deviation
devices, specifically designed for this end, were placed to change
the strand direction (Fig. 6(c)). These devices were covered with
a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) layer to ensure that no prestress
losses occurred during the application of the prestress force and
also to avoid the introduction of lateral forces at these devices.
With the prestressing system applied, the mass of soil and
debris was removed from the accident zone and it was possible
to execute the footings of the five steel shores and to put these in
place (Fig. 7(a)). Afterwards, since an active shoring was wanted,
a prestress force of approximately 150 kN was applied to each of
these using hydraulic jacks (Fig. 7(b)). In this case, this value was
chosen since 5 MPa was assumed as an acceptable upper limit for
the stress increase locally introduced in the concrete, the loading
area being 0.10 0.30 m2 . It should be stressed that the building
was erected in a period characterized by a low quality level, as

Fig. 6. (a) Prestressing consolidation system. (b) Steel beam on top of the building and anchorage of prestressing tendons. (c) Steel deviation device.

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Fig. 7. (a) Provisional steel shores. (b) Prestressing the shores with hydraulic jacks.

Fig. 8. (a) Foundation for the retrofitting steel frame and shear wall. (b) Assembling the retrofitting steel frame. (c) Additional bracing steel shores.

mentioned before; the structure was damaged by the accident;

and, according to the project, a B225 concrete (fck 18 MPa) was
adopted. Lastly, a triangular steel bracing system was welded to
the steel shores (Fig. 8(a)).
6. Repair and strengthening
Once the consolidation operations of the damaged body of
the building had been concluded, it was possible to move on
with the rehabilitation work of both structural and non-structural
elements. Since these operations were intended to take place
as quickly as possible, and also aiming to minimize the timedependent deformations of members to rebuild, a composite steel
and concrete solution was adopted.
Instead of the original isolated footings, it was decided to
adopt a combined footing for the three columns, aiming to
obtain a uniform stress diagram at the soil/footing interface.
Assuming a conservative design, a considerable contact area
(11.5 3.0 m2 ) was adopted with the purpose of minimizing
the stresses and consequently minimizing the time-dependent
settlements. According to the geotechnical study referred to in the
original project, later corroborated by an expert who collaborated
in the retrofitting operation as a consultant, the building is founded
on a hard sandstone soil, called Grs de Silves, typical in some
regions of the Iberian peninsula. This soil presents an allowable
pressure of 400 kPa but, for the reasons mentioned above, a design
value of 200 kPa was assumed. The footing was executed with steel
bolts on top to receive the retrofitting steel frame (Fig. 8(a)).
The bottom rear masonry wall of the 12-story cantilever was
replaced by an RC shear wall aiming to better accommodate
the load transfer from both provisional shoring systems to the

retrofitting steel frame (Fig. 8(a)). Inside, near the columns, steel
shores were also applied to strengthen these zones.
Afterward, the retrofitting steel frame was assembled and
connected to the foundation using grout to fill the voids (Fig. 8(b)).
Provisional steel diagonals were welded to the retrofitting steel
frame to serve as a bracing system during load transfer (Fig. 8(b)).
In order to ensure an effective bracing also in the direction normal
to the plane of the frame, three additional steel shores were also
linked to the retrofitting steel frame (Fig. 8(c)).
7. Load transferring
The connection between the retrofitting steel frame and the
damaged body of the building was materialized by first applying
an interface steel beam to the bottom of the latter with epoxybonded steel bolts and by filing the voids also with an epoxy
resin. However, this operation could not be undertaken with the
prestressing system installed. Therefore, first, the prestress force of
each of the five steel shores of the second shoring system had to be
slightly increased. Then, the prestressing strands and the deviation
devices were removed. And, lastly, the interface steel beam was put
in place.
Provisional steel corbels were welded to the retrofitting steel
frame on both sides of each column (Fig. 9). The aim was to
transfer the load supported by the provisional shoring system to
the retrofitting steel frame in one single step, using simultaneously
six hydraulic jacks placed on top of these corbels (Fig. 9). Linking
steel elements, specially designed to be placed between the
interface steel beam (connected to the cantilever bottom) and the
retrofitting steel frame, were then supposed to be welded to both

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Fig. 9. Schematic drawing of load transfer using hydraulic jacks on top of provisional steel corbels, welded to each of the retrofitting columns, and linking steel element to
be placed between and welded to both the retrofitting column and the interface steel beam.

Fig. 10. Set up for load transfer using hydraulic jacks.

(Fig. 9). Nevertheless, since the contractor was only able to provide
two hydraulic jacks, the load transfer was performed in several
steps instead, using steel pads to be able to move the hydraulic
jacks from one corbel to another and welding the three linking steel
elements finally (Fig. 10).

Fig. 11. (a) Schematic drawing of the transfer steel plates welded to the interface
steel beam and connected with M20 steel anchors to each of the existing RC
columns. (b) Detail of the transfer steel plates.

8. Finishing operations
After mobilizing the retrofitting steel frame, all steel shores
from both the bracing system and the provisional shoring system
were removed, as well as the steel corbels. Since, in the case of an
earthquake, tension stresses between the retrofitting steel frame
and the original structure will appear, it was decided to strengthen
this connection. With this aim, transfer steel plates were welded
to the interface steel beam and connected to each of the three RC
columns with epoxy-bonded steel bolts (Fig. 11).
The destroyed slab was rebuilt adopting a solid concrete slab
supported by steel beams normal to the plane of the steel frame
(Fig. 12(a)). In this process, steel elements from the provisional
systems were reused. Next, all steel members were provided with
steel reinforcement and covered with a high-performance grout
(Fig. 12(b)) aiming to ensure effective fire and corrosion protection
and also assumed as an additional strengthening measure.
Finally, non-structural finishing operations were carried out
and the building was painted (Fig. 12(b)). Later, the 2-story
parking garage located in the backyard that had vanished was

Fig. 12. (a) Retrofitting steel frame after removing the provisional systems and
rebuilding the destroyed slab. (b) Retrofitting operations concluded.

also rebuilt (Fig. 13) and the building retrofitting was completely
accomplished.

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P. Tiago, E. Jlio / Engineering Structures 32 (2010) 18141820

Fig. 13. Rebuilt parking garage.

9. Final remarks
Relative to the intervention, it should be noted that the
design of all structural members was performed considering
the construction phases described. Consequently, the retrofitted
structure turned out to be considerably more resistant than the
original one. As an example, it can be mentioned that the load
transfer phase constituted a more unfavorable loading situation, in
terms of stresses and supporting conditions, than the final service
conditions. Furthermore, it was ensured that the connection
between the new and the existing structural members was
compatible with the maximum strength capacity of these.
As regards the original structure, it can be stated that it
corresponds to a typical residential building erected in Portugal
in the time period referred to in the introduction. In fact, the
materials and methods at that time were not outstanding, for the
reasons given, but, nevertheless, the building had a satisfactory
response to the unforeseen event of an impact of a mass of soil
and debris against its RC structure. For this reason, it can be stated
that the structure of this building is robust, since it was capable
of preventing a progressive collapse after a localized damage. This
property, robustness, gained much interest after the Ronan Point
block of flats disaster in 1968, caused by an explosion, and more
recently after the Twin Towers catastrophe in 2001, caused by a
terrorist attack.
Different researchers have proposed different approaches to
achieve structural robustness, including the creation of alternate

load paths in the structure; the improvement of redundancy and

ductility; and the reduction of risk of abnormal loads, through
protection of the structure [9]. Nevertheless, this concept is not
yet included in codes, at least not in a helpful way. Taking the
Eurocodes as an example, only in EC 1 [6] (part 7) does a definition
of robustness appear: the ability of a structure to withstand
events like fire, explosions, impact or the consequences of human
error, without being damaged to an extent disproportionate to
the original cause, although no practical measures are provided.
Some organizations have recently published some guidelines on
robustness, such as IABSE [10], and there is a COST Action in
progress to study this issue [11]. Nonetheless, common to all
proposed approaches is the fact that these are always focused
only on the structure. Following the experience described here, the
authors would like to present a different suggestion concerning
this subject.
The building described in this paper was able to withstand the
mentioned unforeseen event only because both lateral masonry
walls were mobilized. It seems therefore rather interesting
to start considering non-structural elements as a structural
reserve, for this scenario only, not for fundamental, accidental or
seismic combinations of actions. Naturally, specifications on the
material properties and on the construction procedures, including
detailing guidelines, of these non-structural elements will also be
required.
References
[1] Vicente R. Pathology of facade wallsMechanical behavior of facade walls with
external correction of thermal bridges. M.Sc. thesis. University of Coimbra.
2002 [in Portuguese].
[2] RSEP. Code on actions for buildings and bridges. 1961 [in Portuguese].
[3] REBA. Code on reinforced concrete structures. 1967 [in Portuguese].
[4] Recommendations pratiques lusage des constructeurs. Comit Europen du
Bton. 1963.
[5] Eurocode 0: Basis of structural design. European Committee for Standardization. 2002.
[6] Eurocode 1: Actions on structures. European Committee for Standardization.
2006.
[7] Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures. European Committee for Standardization. 2004.
[8] Eurocode 8: Design of structures for earthquake resistance. European
Committee for Standardization. 2004.
[9] Ellingwood BR, Dusenberry DO. Building design for abnormal loads and
progressive collapse. Comput Aid Civ Inf Eng 2005;20:194205.
[10] Knoll F, Vogel T. Design for robustness, structural engineering documents.
Internat Assoc Bridge Struct Eng 2009.
[11] COST-TU0601. Memorandum of understanding. 2007.