Task 3 The proposal page 1 Mr.

Tom Chlayon
ID 75327620
The Preliminary Report of the Leaning Tower

The selection of materials and construction methods

The leaning tower of Pisa is one of the seven wonders in medieval age. This
tower working life should be designed as a monument building which is designed for
100 years or more. This is very important for selecting materials. Different materials
have different periods for renovations. For a long term design, high durability
materials are preferred.

Figure 1 the soil layer (Burland et al., 1998)

For the foundation, pile foundation will be used. The initial estimation of pile
depth is at least 38 meters below ground level for reaching the dense sand layer.
From the site geology, it will be wise to use bored pile for avoiding the ground
disruption to adjacent building in constructions. The report indicates that the
pancone clay layer is very uncertainty because it is sensitive and can be easily lost
strength. To avoid this problem, the effects from this layer shall be neglected by
using a frictionless casting on during the construction for preventing the negative
skin friction and also neglect the friction forces from this layer in detail calculations.
The concretes using in the foundations shall be used the salt resistance type because
this site may face the salt water intrusion problems.
For the building, the tower geometry and features shall be the same as the
exist tower of Pisa. The design incline angle of the tower will be 4 degrees leaning to
the south. The high durability and light weight shall be considered. Instead of using
the pure masonry which is not a wise choice for long term durability, steel
formworks are selected for the cores of this tower. The light weight concrete block
will be used for wall and cladding with the marble as the exist tower. The material
selection is supported by many reasons. This topic will be discussed in more details
in the assessment section.
The rigid construction is proposed for the leaning tower. This construction
type will provide a high resilient to seismic damage and it can uphold the eccentric
load to the foundations
Task 3 The proposal page 2 Mr. Tom Chlayon
ID 75327620

Figure 2 the tower geometry (Baj and Bozzolato, 1990)

The leaning tower details (Wikipedia, 2010)
 Elevation of Piazza del Duomo: about 2 metres (6 feet, DMS)
 Height: 55.863 metres (183 ft 3 in), 8 stories
 Outer diameter of base: 15.484 metres (50 ft 9.6 in)
 Inner diameter of base: 7.368 metres (24 ft 2.1 in)
 Angle of slant: 3.97 degrees or 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) from the vertical
 Weight: 14,700 metric tons (16,200 short tons)
 Thickness of walls at the base: 8 ft (2.4 m)
 Number of steps to the top: 296

The proposal for ground treatment and settlement

The soils in the leaning tower site are in terrible conditions and need to be
stabilized before used. The main problem is the settlements in both short and long
terms. To increasing the consolidation rates, a Prefabricated Vertical Drains (PVD)
technique or a Vacuum Consolidation PVD technique will be used depending on the
limit of the construction times and budgets. This technique will increase the
consolidation rate by directly dewatering soils layers and it successfully solves the
soil problems in Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand (Saowapakpiboon et al.). Moreover,
this technique will be very effective on the 10-20 metres below the ground (Lorenzo
et al., 2004). Actually the problems of Suvanabhumi airport and tower are alike in
soil conditions. Both of them are built in marsh areas. The injection of the concrete
grouting into the ground is not recommended because the engineer cannot control
the quality and the soil strength. Besides, the bored pile is already proposed for the
foundations and the grouting will definitely cause some side effects to the piles.
Task 3 The proposal page 3 Mr. Tom Chlayon
ID 75327620
The assessment for tower stabilities and settlements
The settlements can be divided into short and long terms. As mentioned in
ground treatment sections, the PVD will be applied before construction states for
reducing the short term settlement effects caused by the soil consolidations. This
technique will provide a surcharge pressure on the soil surfaces, and uses fabricate
materials for water draining in the vertical direction. So, it is a combination between
pre-loadings and increasing consolidation rates in itself.
For the long term, obviously the tower will have an unavoidable settlement.
But it can be designed to have uniformly settlements not a tilt one. The idea is to
control the centre of mass of the building and the uniformly treatment to the
ground. To deal with the centre of mass problems, engineer needs to design the
leaning tower which causes eccentric load and overturning moments of structures.
Two ideas for solving the tower instabilities are proposed. One is putting a counter
balance weights on the other side of the tower foundations. This method will shift
the centre of mass point and reduce or cancel the effect of eccentric load caused by
the incline angle. The other is to create a matt foundation under the base of the
tower. The calculation of the foundation size will be based on previous lean
instability research papers.
For seismic and earthquake protection, the based isolated systems shall be
installed in the tower structures. And the light weight materials in constructions shall
be selected. The earthquake force will increase depending on the height, the mass,
and the ground acceleration on structures. The more mass and height are, the more
earthquake forces will increase. Moreover, the reducing of the overall structural
weight will also reduce the overturning moment caused by the eccentric load too.

Outline calculations
-comparing the effect of changing the construction materials in terms of the weight
-immediate settlements (short term) [will provide details calculation in final report]
-consolidation analysis (long term) [will provide details calculation in final report]
-the leaning instability calculation and design [will provide details calculation in final
report]
Task 3 The proposal page 4 Mr. Tom Chlayon
ID 75327620

Sample of Detail Calculations

-Comparing the effect of changing the construction materials in terms of the weight
Calculation assumption

Total tower weight used of masonry structure is 14500 tons

The structural volume will be base on the geometry shown in figure 2

Assuming all previous structures are masonry structures

Light weight concrete block wall = 80 kg/m2

General masonry wall = 180 kg/m2

stair load will not change

Assume the outer diameter (D) = 12.7 m.

Assume the inner diameter (d) = 7.4 m.

Assume the height = 55.9 m.

Assume column section = 305x305x137
The wall structures are put on both inner and outer diameter
Wall Area = xdxh + xDxh
= 3.14x7.4x55.9 + 3.14x12.7x55.9
= 3528 m2
By changing the material we can reduce the structures self weight
= (180-80) x 3528
= 352 tons (from 635 tons to 285 tons)
6 steel columns will be use in structures, the total weight of columns is
= 6 x 55.9 x 137
= 49 tons
Considering only wall and column, the different of structural self weight is
= 635 – (285+49)
= 301 tons

For a very rough approximation can be assumed that 40% out of 14500 tons
weight is masonry structures. So, the masonry structure self weight is 5800 tons.
From our sample calculation, the structure self weight can be reduced by half to
2900 tons. So the effective of changing the materials is
= 2900/14500x100
= 20% Approx.

(Atzeni et al., BAI et al., 2008a, BAI et al., 2008b, Camuffo et al., 1999, Carpenter,
2007, Zhou et al., 2001)
Task 3 The proposal page 5 Mr. Tom Chlayon
ID 75327620