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Hydraulic Jacking of a High-rise Apartment Building.
Our Role
We were engaged to scan, fabricate, install, execute, and monitor a large scale building shoring system incorporating hydraulic jacking and a data acquisition system to take up high-rise building loads in order to facilitate the safe repair of heavily deteriorated building columns.
Project Background
The project centered on the urgent rehabilitation of critically deteriorated reinforced concrete columns in an 18-story apartment building, which remained occupied throughout the operation. These structural elements had suffered extensive damage over time, with the severity of the decay manifesting in large sheets of concrete, up to 4 inches thick, detaching along the full height of the columns. The risk posed by this level of deterioration was extreme and the repairs would require a rapidly planned and executed repair strategy.
Project Description
Our specific contribution to the repair project was to locate embedded reinforcing steel via GPR scanning, design, fabricatien and install three levels of heavy steel shoring frames and brackets, transfer active loads off the existing concrete columns into these new frames - a process referred to as "active shoring" - and the monitor the transfer of stresses through the members across the multiple levels. The installation process was particularly challenging at the bottommost level, where the frames were placed over the building's existing strip footing. These frames incorporated "jacking boxes" to allow the for the receipt of the hydraulic cylinders. This approach allowed us to effectively redistribute the building's weight, creating a safe environment for the subsequent concrete repair works.
Our team also designed and built a custom data acquisition system tailored specifically for this project which was used to monitor stress distribution through the new frames during the loading/unloading process. The real-time data collected by this system not only provided invaluable insights into the effectiveness of our strategy but also offered a means to dynamically adjust in response to live load distribution data, guaranteeing the safety and stability of the building throughout the process.
With the successful installation and loading of these steel frames, we handed over a safely shored structure to Conterra Restoration's skilled crews, who could then proceed with the intricate concrete repair tasks with confidence, knowing the building was securely supported.
