Geotechnical causes of damages for the Parliament building in Belgrade

The Parliament building of the Republic of Serbia is one of the biggest and most beautiful cultural monuments in Serbia from the first half of 20th century. Right now, there are numerous structural damages over the building. In order to define remedial measures for rehabilitation of the Parliament building, it was necessary to carry out detailed geotechnical investigations. These investigations were performed by the Faculty of Mining and Geology, University in Belgrade. Thus, geotechnical properties of the terrain in a zone of its interaction with the building were defined according to the obtained results. The bearing capacity of foundation soil and settlements of footings were calculated, too. These analyses showed that the existing footings loads values are less than allowable values, but the settlements of footings are much larger than it is allowable, and it is a main reason of the structural damages over the building. The settlements were determined by two methods: conventional and finite element. The obtained values are very close. In addition, by the finite element analysis it was concluded that the building has no resistance to the effects of earthquakes. Remedial measures were proposed on the basis of these results, and in cooperation with engineers responsible for rehabilitation of the structure. These measures permanently solve the problems related to the static and dynamic stability of the Parliament building from the geotechnical point of view.