RECOMMENDATION FOR STRUCTURAL FAILURE

1. Cracks

Cracks can be happen due to many factor and causes. These cracks can be less impactful when
it is a small crack but eventually lead to something much critical risking safety of occupants
and the structure surrounding it.

Recommendation

Cracks can be repaired with injection technology. The material injected will be adhesive, low
viscosity and also high flexibility. To determine the injection material choice, some factors will
be needed to be taken into consideration in advance. These factors includes cracks width,
cracks activity as well as water presence.

Types of material includes epoxy resins which has have high compressive and tensile
strength comparing with concrete and, as a rigid material, they are used in structural repairs
ensuring the efficient transfer of strengths and recovering the structure rigidity conditions, due
to the strong adhesion between epoxy resins and concrete. Another material identified is
polyurethane resins which are flexible and guarantee a strong adhesion with the concrete in
wet or dry cracks. It also has high chemical resistance, recommendable to fill cracks
permanently with variable opening over time, adapting to movements, with minimum width of
approximately 0.2 mm.

Cracks direct injection under pressure, with surface packers, should be used when it cannot
be possible to drill the concrete, there is no infiltration and the injection pressure is low (below
20 bar).

Figure 1 : Cracks direct injection under pressure

 Cracks injection under pressure by mechanical packers placed by mechanically drilling,
is the most common and effective method. However, this application is only possible when
concrete is healthy and there is no risk of reinforcement steel damage. Within this method it is
possible to inject with low or high pressures.

Figure 2 : Cracks injection under pressure by mechanical packers placed by mechanically

drilling

This method also works for repairing water leakage that occurs in building. These can very
helpful as water can cause concrete slur and also weakens steel reinforcement in concrete that
eventually contributes to spalling and rust stain on walls.

2. Building specification

The building that were discussed is having a serious problem in its specification that had cause
its downfall and other damage that could potentially harm the occupants which could led to
lawsuits and lost of life.

Recommendation

The construction of the building were based on flat slab construction which does not utilizes
the use of beam in its construction components. Flat were only consist of slabs and columns to
distribute load to the ground. With the beam is inserted into the design of the structure, loading
can be transferred more efficiently thus can withstand higher loading.

Another recommendation is to thicken the slab in its construction. This would not only
increase the loading capacity but also can reduce the risk of cracks as thinner slab potentially
much fragile than thicker slabs. It is also to prevent overload which the structure is withstanding
loading exceeding the maximum load that the structure can bear. Thus, overloading-related
issues can be prevented and its symptom could be avoided.

Figure 3 : Standard specs for slab construction and its calculation

The problems also occurs when it comes to reinforcements where the bar is below the
amount to be installed according to the specifications. That being said, next recommendations
is to increase the amount of reinforcement bar so that the structural component be improved in
terms of tensile strength thus giving the structure much more stiffness which could be useful
especially in terms of shear force.

Last but not least, the problems occurs in the diameter of column which does not
achieved the optimum measurement. With the diameter of column being raise to an optimum
level, the loading capacity could be increase and overcome lateral force eventually. With
increase diameter, load can be distributed across larger surface area and withstand load from
above.