A county court house in Oregon einforced concrete construction for the period. T

Question

A county court house in Oregon einforced concrete construction for the period. The first floor (a structural floor over a was constructed in 1910. It was an excellent example of asement) housed the courtroom and county administrative offices. The second floor housed the sheriff's department and jail. The same floor design and materials were used for both floors. The floors exhibited a small amount of stable cracking, but nothing unusual. In 1987, within a period of two months, the second floor began to exhibit severe cracking. The cracking progressed and eventually the historic court house had to be abandoned until repairs were made. 1. What happened to cause the damage to the second floor in such a short period of time? 2. Why did the second floor show damage and not the first floor? Hint: The sheriff hired a new janitor about a month before the increase in cracking was first observed.

Explanation / Answer

Brief Facts of the case made available:

1.Court house ( Reinforced construction) built in 1910.
2.First Floor courtroom and offices
3.Second floor Sheriff Dept and Jail.
4.Same design and materials in both floors
5.Floors exhibited small amount of stable cracking
6. In 1987 within a period of two months second floor showed severe progressive cracking.
7. Building had to be abandoned until repairs.

Analysis/Comments.In view of very limited information available, following are the comments:

This is a RCC construction building which was built 77 years earlier. And so the stable life of a well maintained concrete building being 50 t0 60 years considerable deterioration would have been occurring in concrete works due to expansion, contraction, leakages and seepages etc. Over such a long period of time, the jails being restricted area regular maintenance may not have been done and so deterioration was perhaps already in progress. Concrete by its nature develops shrinkage cracks and as water seeps in they grow rapidly due to entry of moisture and cause corrosion of reinforcement leading to severe cracking and deflection.In view of limited information provided other cause are not possible to be commented upon.
Since a new Janitor was employed by Sheriff about a month before cracking, the process could have got aggravated due to poor maintenance of wet areas like wash rooms , sinks, etc and wrong use of chemicals to declog pipes would have aggravated the already slowly progressing deterioration of second floor.
The damage of second floor was more than the first floor could be because of different usage of the floors. While second floor was in continuous usage day and night because of jail and sheriff office, the first floor would have been used mostly in daytimes.

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