Settlements of Three Buildings Founded on Stratified Soils

This paper describes the movements experienced by three residential buildings located in Avellino (South Italy). A common feature of the buildings is the unsymmetrical superstructure that, for lack of construction joints, makes the resultant of the vertical loads on foundation to be highly eccentric. At the end of December 1983, when most of the dead loads had been applied, the buildings exhibited conspicuous settlements, so construction was stopped and the vertical displacement of several points of the foundation was measured during a period of almost one year. The subsoil was investigated by boreholes, CPT and conventional laboratory tests; it consists of a sequence of compressible layers of silty sand and clayey silt, overlying a gravel formation. The thickness of these layers was found to be very different from borehole to borehole. An analysis of the movements occurred is conducted using a finite element code. Good agreement is found between theoretical prediction and experimental measurements. The analysis has also shown that the compressibility and heterogeneity of the subsoil along with the eccentricity of loads on foundation were the main causes for the movements occurred