Case study of movement and damage to a residential building founded on expansive clays

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a residential house damaged by expansive soils. The field investigation revealed that the damage was caused by a combination of sewer pipe leak and stormwater leak. A back-analysis procedure using finite-element analysis is presented that is based the measured slab surface levels. The results of the back-analysis indicated that a stronger footing was required to limit differential deflection and stress level in footing to an acceptable level. © 2008 Science Press Beijing and Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg Geotechnical Engineering for Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation.