Rotten steel connection
Ever wonder what's supporting our sidewalks? Well heres a photo of steel below a sidewalk. It's so bad that you can't even tell what's what.
The beam is located at the division between the sidewalk and the building, which is a common place for water proofing to fail. The result? Water seeps through the slab slowly and attacks the steel that's encased in concrete.
Over time the steel corrodes and because of poor maintenance, the corrosion accelerates and you end up with this dangerous condition.
The remedy? Fix it of course! But before you can prepare drawings, you have to protect the safety of the public by providing temporary support of the sidewalk.
Steepshot
fix it the same way it is constructed?
Kick the can down the road?
Or use something that does NOT corrode?
Basalt Rebar reinforcement is an alternative to steel
Wow! Something new every day!
One of the biggest things we have to focus on in engineering is the predictability of failure and ability see things fail. I wonder if this product shows signs of ductile or brittle failure....
basalt lasts a long LONG time.
I'm not doubt that. What I'm concerned about is mode of failure.
The reason why steel is preferred in reinforced concrete is because of its failure mechanism.
When a concrete beam (without steel) is over stressed, it can suddenly give way and collapse without any warning.
When it is paired with steel, the steel elongates over a period of time. Cracks develop but the structure still stands. The beam begins to heavily sag and eventually the steel snaps and then collapses.
The former is brittle failure, the latter ductile.if basalt is brittle, it has little use in construction (look at cast iron. It's as strong as steel, until you decide to stretch it).
Woow that is really scary I'm sure @pdxlove have seen similar stuff. But yeah I'm really worried about were we walk now :/ Thanks for sharing it!
It's not as common as one may think. This also only applies to urban areas where buildings have basements that extend below the side walk!
I see and that might also explain why having basements in Costa Rica is not a common thing.
Digging holes, as funny as it may be, is an expensive endeavor.
I wanna see an architectural section through there! Showing the street and the building interface... what made them request you to take a look into this?
I've seen it a thousand times and kept mentioning it to my "boss" and he didnt care. So another supervisor saw it and went straight to the client.
Lol haha nice sketch where is the building interface :?
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