52 53 The two-staged appraisal process adopted in the Manual is not applicable since the presence of more unknowns and variables in the assessments, particularly those relating to reinforcement corrosion, makes the initial appraisal not possible. Desk Study During the desk study stage, all the available information relating to the structural integrity of buildings should be collected and reviewed. Typical information include location of structural elements, locations likely with poter works, past repair and defect records and unusual form of construction. A problems, special features such as cantilevers, unauthorized building detail list is given below. © Building plans, structural plans and details of structural elements including, beams, slabs, columns, load bearing walls, ete * Past records of condition survey, repair and upgrading works © Previous structural monitoring records ‘* Previous appraisal reports © Incidents of fallen building materials. Note should be taken of any defects at those locations © Unusual forms of construction, such as pre-cast construction and ribbed slabs with in-filled hollow blocks (usually found at top floor) * Locations likely to pose potential problems, e.g. toilet areas, kitchens, leaking pipes over beams, staircases ‘© Items requiring special consideration, such as parapet beams facing extemal areas ‘© Unauthorized building works Visual Condition Survey In the visual surveys stage, surveys shall be structured and focused with an aim for planning subsequent sampling and testing, Surveys shall be carried out to record all defects and any signs of structural distress. Since there are numerous structural elements in a building, to survey all these elements is almost an insurmountable task, Hence, it is only practical to choose a sample of elements for inspection. ‘The sampling rate of the survey shall be determined taking into account of the general conditions of the buildings. As a general rule, at least 5% of the domestic units shall be inspected. All defects shall be properly recorded and where appropriate accompanied with 154 55 photographs and simple sketches with defects clearly marked to identify their type, location, severity, extent and the likely causes. Testing Random sampling shall be adopted where possible to ensure that the test results truly reflect the actual situation. If a biased sampling is unavoidable for any reasons including constraints in test location selection, need to investigate the worst spots, etc, the factors affecting the sampling and the representativeness of the test results shall be properly documented and their effects are to be allowed in the subsequent assessments. In any case, engineers’ inspection and observation on the structure is important and this must not be replaced by pure office assessment based on the test results. Insitu samples shall be taken for the following tests. Sampling rates and additional tests shall be determined to take into account of the actual conditions of the buildings * open up and reinforcement survey * concrete core compression test © chloride content * carbonation front measurement Time of next structural appraisal Projection of the structural conditions, particularly the likely extent of steel corrosion, by the time of next investigation shall also have to make. A 15 years period is normally to be adopted. ‘Loads The Handbook of the Manual suggests, on the strength of extensive load survey, a nominal imposed load of 0.85 kPa. After discussion with the Independent Control Unit, it was agreed that the design imposed load which shall have been used in the original design should be used. As such for the domestic areas of ageing PRH buildings, a live load of not less than 1.50 kPa which is the figure specified in the then prevailing code but allowing up to 40% live load reduction as set out in the Building (Construction) Regulations shall be adopted. With the issue of the Code of Practice on Wind Effects in Hong Kong 2004 by 1aL 711 712 the Buildings Department, consideration may be given to adopt this new Code for assessment purposes, which generally gives higher wind pressures for low rise buildings but gives lower wind pressures for buildings of moderate heights (50 m to 100m). Materials Reinforcement corrosion measurements and assessment Testing Method The most common method for measuring reinforcement corrosion is opening up to expose the reinforcement for visual inspection. Conveniently other tests and, measurements can be made in parallel, such as carbonation depth, bar size, bar spacing and conerete cover measurements. Extracting a length of steel bar for tensile test can determine the actual tensile strength and other mechanical properties of the steel. This test is however very disruptive and it is very difficult to obtain a representative sample and hence it must be adopted with care and on need basis. Other NDT techniques can also be employed to supplement the above tests such as half cell potential, cover meter survey, humidity test, ete, In using these methods, their limitations, reliability and accuracy should be taken into account. Sampling Frequency To decide on the sampling strategy to obtain representative values for the appraisal, factors listed in (4.1) should be considered. In particular for any one building, the following factors shall be considered. 1. Element types 2. Different environmental conditions (including local usage, exposure conditions, surface protection and quality of maintenance) Different bar sizes and covers 4, Mode of corrosion, i.e. corrosion caused by chloride or carbonation Whilst the first three factors will affect the corrosion rate and hence the residual bar sizes, the last one will govern the extent of visual inspection and subsequent 1further testing required. Although to take into account completely the effects of all these factors in order to determine more precise values for each and every cases will require a substantial number of tests and inspection, a good understanding of these variations are important in designing a suitable sampling scheme. To balance between cost and time and the precision required for arriving at a reasonable appraisal result, a staged approach may be adopted as shown in the flowchart below. Whether a global or local value is to be used may also be determined based on the correlation of the factors and visual symptoms and the test results. Where there is no significant difference, a global assessment may be adopted. Otherwise, local values for each individual category will have to be used.‘Visual Survey | C dentify relevant Factors and Symtoms (R&S) ‘Can we categorize the ‘elements according to F&s? Devise categories I Devise Sampling plan foreach eategory Do test results correlate signifieantly with categories ? ‘Can redefining the -ategories (groupings) improve the corelation required, further tests fo confirm the categorizations effectiveness + Different assessments for the different eategories ‘One globalAltematively, average values at individual location can be used without any generalization. In this case, the appraisal findings, which summarize the assessment at each location, will only give a general picture on the overall condition of the concerned elements and an estimated extent of remedial works required. Both approaches can only give a best estimate on the repair work required. To identify all the elements that actually require repair will still have to be based on detailed testing and assessment in the works stage. 7.1.3 Measurement Method Corrosion reduces the effective area of steel, which is critical in assessing the adequacy of the elements and hence the structure. It is reasonable to adopt the least dimension measured on site as the actual bar diameter for appraisal since if the steel fails it should fail at the least area section. This however tends to be conservative particularly in case the cross-section of the corroded bar is not close to circular. Exposed reinforcement bars shall be measured as per the following procedure: a. Measure the least sectional dimension along X axis and record it as ‘Xmin. Then measure the sectional dimension along Y axis at the section where Xmin, is identified, and record it as Y(Xmin). b. Measure the least sectional dimension along Y axis and record it as Ymin. Then measure the sectional dimension along X axis at the section where Y min is identified, and record it as X(Ymin) Where X axis of steel bar is the axis along which a steel bar has the least sectional dimension and Y axis of steel bar is the axis perpendicular to X axis. The least area of the 2 locations shall be adopted for subsequent analysis. Where there is no deep local pitting in the reinforcement, the actual sectional area may be taken as fixy/4 where x and y are measured at 90°to each other at the same section. Allowance should also be made for the permissible tolerance in the mass and hence the size specified in the manufacturing of steel bars as stated in CS2. 1