The purpose of the project is to study the foundation of a 17-storey building, located in
the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia), in the presence of land with a poor surface layer
and strong seismic action.
The proposal is for foundations made of piloted slabs and the replacement of the
surface layers with suitable fillers.
One of the particularities of the project is the structure of the building raised by means of
mass concrete walls and solid slabs, both of small thickness, made with tunnel type formwork.
The structure has great rigidity, so the effects of earthquakes are magnified, generating an increase on the foundation floor that exceeds the admissible tension, therefore having to introduce an adequate number of piles that are capable of withstanding the load increases by way of the shaft effect.
The study of piles is based on the precise knowledge that the contractor company selected to carry out the deep foundation work has, obtained by different on-site tests carried out on different test piles on terrain similar to that present on the plot. The calculation has been based on this data, which will be confirmed once the corresponding piles are tested, prior to the start of the works.
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