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Structural damage assessment

When a structure is damaged or collapses, we determine why it happened, the extent of the damage, whether it is structural and what insurance cover and liabilities may apply.

Partially collapsed residential building

Structures leave traces

When a structure, or part of it, fails or collapses, it is necessary to find out what caused it. The assessment determines both the causes of the failure and the value of the damage caused.

Structures that fail leave traces of the weakness they have suffered. At Ingeniería Estructural Plus we understand the language of those traces and, from them, we recognise the stress behaviour that led to failure, the weak points that caused it and the reason for their weakness.

Our protocol

Structural damage assessment requires a specifically developed protocol for data collection and action. Ours combines non-destructive testing typical of civil engineering works with the data collection usual in building, and consists of two phases:

  1. Measurement of the deformations on site, by means of a topographic levelling survey.
  2. Office analysis of the stresses that those deformations cause in the structure and the foundation.

With this overview we define the extent of the damage, determine whether or not it is structural and, therefore, the possible insurance cover and liabilities.

Serviceability versus stability

In building, almost all cases are due to two types of deformation: angular distortions, associated with differential movement of the foundation, and bending deformations (deflections) of the structure.

The Spanish Technical Building Code (CTE) limits those deformations for the serviceability limit state: the values beyond which damage appears that affects the appearance of the building, the comfort of users or the operation of equipment and installations. But no standard sets the values beyond which the stability of the foundation or the structure is compromised, which is the condition laid down by the Spanish Building Act (Ley de Ordenación de la Edificación, LOE) for the decennial guarantee to apply.

At Ingeniería Estructural Plus we have determined the range of deformation values that governs the stability of the structure: the point beyond which the decennial guarantee would apply. We explain it in the guide structural damage and the decennial guarantee.