Technical Analysing existing structures

Analysing existing
structures: a brief introduction
MATHAI MATHEW structures, though some care is necessary in determining
MEng (Hons), CEng, MIStructE whether it is appropriate to make use of them:
Associate Director, Michael Hadi Associates, Cambridge, UK Ò| Historic live load allowances are sometimes higher than
modern requirements.
Ò| In the UK, live load reductions for the design of multistorey
buildings appear to have been first considered in BS
Introduction 449:19321.
There has never been a more pressing time to improve our Ò| Factors of safety used in historic design are sometimes
understanding of existing structures. Each one represents more conservative than present-day equivalents.
an ‘investment’ of carbon emissions at some point in the
past. Being able to analyse and modify them for new uses The engineer should bear in mind that not all historic
maximises the return on this investment and reduces the need structures will have been designed and constructed in
for present-day emissions, particularly if this can be done accordance with the codes, guidance and best practice of
without extensive strengthening works. the time. It is necessary to judge the likelihood of this based
Engineers working with existing structures will need to be on the age and nature of the building and evidence from desk
familiar with the behaviour and construction of a wide variety studies, surveys and investigations.
of materials and structural types, both modern and historic. The proposed development may itself contribute to
They will need to exercise engineering judgement more redundancy:
frequently and possess a firm grasp of first principles to ensure Ò| Changes of use can lead to reduced live loads.
such judgements are sound. Ò| Removal and replacement of existing heavy finishes such
as screeds and levelling compounds can lead to reduced
When is analysis necessary? dead loads. Removal of existing partitions or replacing solid
The general aim of analysis, with both existing and new loadbearing walls with lighter alternatives can have a similar
structures, is to demonstrate that applied loads are exceeded effect.
by calculated resistances. Ò| Existing sections which were previously governed by
If the proposals for a particular existing building involve serviceability limits may have spare capacity if it is possible
neither increasing loads nor decreasing resistances, then to relax those limits, e.g. by using more deflection-tolerant
analysis is often not necessary. The structure may be deemed finishes.
functionally adequate on the grounds that it has performed
acceptably over an extended period of time under its current What are the prospects?
loading. The fact that utilisation ratios of around 80% are common
However, there are some exceptions to this principle and for critical elements, and even as low as 60% on average2,
analysis will be required if the structure: indicates that the first four factors alone can yield significant
Ò| is in poor condition, indicating that its original resistance spare capacity to accommodate new development.
may have been compromised Legal constraints notwithstanding, the author’s experience
Ò| shows signs of distress, indicating that its original is that most medium-to-large city-centre structures have been
resistance may have been inadequate found to possess adequate redundancy to make some form of
Ò| contains obvious defects, such as absent load paths, redevelopment commercially viable with minimal intervention.
modifications that have weakened load paths, or grossly All the same, the greatest potential, at least in the UK, is to
undersized elements. be found in iron, steel and concrete buildings dating from the
early 19th to early 20th century. This is for two reasons – the
Redundancy, and where it may be found vast stock of surviving buildings from this period, and the
Where the proposals do involve increasing loads or decreasing degree of redundancy which they often exhibit. This article is
resistances, the engineer is reliant on finding redundancy in written predominantly with this type of structure in mind.
the existing structure. Sources of redundancy common to
both modern and historic structures include: Approaches to analysis
Ò| rationalisation – where a critical design section has been Comprehensive analysis of any structure involves a large
applied to non-critical members, usually to simplify design quantity of data, much of which is usually absent for existing
and construction buildings. Often, the only information available is an idea as to
Ò| conservatism – where sections that work ‘comfortably’ the approximate age and original use of the building, limited
have been specified, or unnecessarily high allowances for investigation results and a topographic survey.
finishes, etc. were used in the original design
Ò| practicality – where the size of a section is governed by 1) When little information is available, or the client’s brief is
ease of construction, rather than structural demand (often modest, the simplest approach is a load balance. If it can
the case with concrete walls) be demonstrated that an increase in loads due to one aspect
Ò| availability – even the most efficient section for a given of the proposals can be offset by a decrease due to another,
scenario may not be at full utilisation, since section sizes with the result that there is no overall increase, the existing
are not on a continuum. structure must be adequate and existing margins of safety
are maintained.
Further sources of redundancy are available with historic A common example occurs with rear extensions. Consider

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 Analysing existing structures Technical

a beam supporting the rear elevation of a Victorian brick 3) If, in addition to section sizing, it is practical to test
building with floor beams spaced at 4.8m (16’). The client’s material properties, the engineer can attempt to assess the
brief is to extend the existing floor plate rearward using a steel structure in accordance with modern limit state design
and composite frame: principles. Strictly speaking, material properties to be
Load added (new slab + SDL) 4.25kN/m 2 2.4m determined by testing include not only characteristic material
strength and stiffness, but also the variability of these
11.5kN/m (15.5 ultimate) parameters, from which the engineer can derive appropriate
Load added (imposed partitions) 3.50kN/m 2 2.4m material safety factors.
In practice, it is often not possible to obtain enough
8.4kN/m (12..6 ultimate)
samples for meaningful statistical analysis and, particularly
Load removed (original rear wall) = 13 1 2 '' 21kN/m3 3m for historic structures, it falls to the engineer to make an
educated judgement about appropriate values for γm.
22.0kN/m (30.8 ultimate)
Reference may be made to the IStructE’s Appraisal of
existing structures5, which describes the basis of modern
In this case, it can be seen that removing a single storey values for γm for various materials as well as circumstances in
of masonry can offset the new floor loads entirely. Other than which adjustments might be appropriate.
its condition, very little information on the existing beam or Modern limit state design codes tend to go into great
adjacent construction is necessary. detail with buckling checks. Historic construction tends to be
quite robust against buckling, more by virtue of construction
2) If the age of the original building is known and sizes and detailing rather than refinement of structural analysis.
of existing elements are confirmed, the strength of the Beams are often well restrained by slabs, and sections
existing structure may be assessed in accordance with are often stockier than we might use today. Where simple
contemporary codes of practice. slenderness checks can be employed, these are usually
For historic iron and steel structures, this is a substantial sufficient.
topic in its own right, well covered in the BCSA’s Historical
Structural Steelwork Handbook3, with allowable stresses 4) Lastly, in certain very limited circumstances, non-
traced as far back as 1879. destructive load testing might be a valuable tool. It can be
Historic concrete structures are typically assessed with both expensive and time-consuming, and an estimate of
modern limit state design methods, using appropriately low strength derived by analysis is a prerequisite. It is usually a
cube and yield strengths based on records and/or testing last resort, when analysis alone is not expected to provide a
wherever possible. reliable prediction of a structure’s behaviour.
Existing timber structures are commonly checked using Unsurprisingly, simpler analyses will tend to yield more
allowable stress design, which many UK engineers still use. If conservative results and more sophisticated methods
in good condition, it is normal to assume that old, slow-grown will tend to yield more favourable results. The brief and
timber is of high quality, usually no less than C24 equivalent, information available will vary from one project to another, so
although this should be corroborated by visual inspection. an appropriate method should be chosen in each case.
If any residual uncertainty remains in the analyses,
îFIGURE 1:
Arrangement Elsewhere in this issue, Jess Foster describes using a proposed loading should be limited to whatever can be
of horizontal combination of these two approaches to justify extensions to justified with confidence.
and vertical
an existing concrete frame4.
diaphragms in
1920s office Common pitfalls
building One of the easiest issues to
trip up on is lateral stability.
Firstly, the relationship between
building height and stability
forces is quadratic – a 10%
increase in height entails
a 20% increase in bracing
forces. Secondly, stability
systems in older buildings
can be idiosyncratic and
poorly conditioned, with the
result that very little works ‘by
inspection’ and almost the
entire load path needs to be
checked explicitly.
It is doubtful that much
analysis was applied to stability
systems before the 1930s.
BS 449:1932 devotes 123
words to wind loads and
concludes that, ‘If the height of
a building is less than twice its
width, wind pressure may be
neglected, provided that the
building is adequately stiffened
by floors and walls’1. The latter

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 Technical Analysing existing structures

check, it seems, falls to the present-day

engineer.
In the 1920s office building shown
in Figure 1, existing floor diaphragms
consisted of 1½” (38mm) thick, low-
strength concrete toppings to hollow
pot slabs. The fourth floor had no direct New mezzanine floor
connection to shear walls but relied on the
roof to transfer lateral loads, and the third
floor was discontinuous across levels. The
client’s brief included removing one of the
main shear walls and cutting large new
openings into the floor plates. A lateral
stability nightmare!
Increasing the height or use
of a building can also change its
disproportionate collapse consequence
class, which may dramatically affect its
structural adequacy. In the same example
(Figure 2), the addition of a mezzanine
floor within an existing roof space resulted
in consequence class 2B, requiring
effective horizontal and vertical ties.
This had a significant effect on detailing
– how does one go about demonstrating
that a loadbearing masonry building
provides ‘effective vertical ties’? It was
necessary to devise a strategy for
disproportionate collapse and agree it with
the approved inspector at an early stage.
In this case, the strategy included notional removal of supports necessary where sudden failure is a possibility. ëFIGURE 2:
Cross-section
and key element design. Removal of existing beams or formation of new floor openings through early
Safety factors should be used with care to compare loads near columns or piers can result in a temporary or permanent 1920s office
and resistances like for like. With some minor exceptions, prior loss of restraint to those columns, which usually rely on floor building showing
vertical and
to limit state design, virtually all factors of safety were ‘global’ – diaphragms to limit their effective length. In heavily loaded or horizontal
i.e. load and material factors rolled into one – and applied to the massive masonry buildings, column restraint loads can exceed extensions
resistance side of the equation only. Furthermore, these might wind loads applied to the diaphragm. In such cases, checks
have been intended for use with ultimate strengths or average should be made to verify the diaphragm’s residual capacity or
strengths rather than characteristic strengths. waling beams provided to replicate its restraint (Figure 3).
A related point is that modern structures are designed with Most larger buildings have a typical framing layout which is
ductility to avoid sudden failure, whereas this is not always replicated across several floors, but the engineer should be wary
the case for historic structures. Higher factors of safety may be of existing transfer beams, which are not always obvious on

íFIGURE 3:
Maintaining
lateral restraint
to columns near
new openings

Insertion of a new stair

to this 1910s steel frame
would have compromised
lateral restraints to
stanchions. New elements
introduced to maintain
restraint are highlighted

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 Analysing existing structures Technical

older drawings, and even harder to detect in the finished building.

Transfer beams often have high utilisation ratios.

Conclusion USEFUL RESOURCES

Existing structures provide significant opportunities to reduce
emissions and costs through reuse and refurbishment.
Structural Engineer’s This book by Fiona Cobb draws together guidance from many
Analysing them need not be daunting, although it involves a Pocket Book superseded codes and contains a useful timeline of historic
different set of challenges than new buildings. Design methods construction forms
have evolved over the years, not so much because structures
have changed (they have), but because we have developed more Historical Structural This BCSA publication is a gold mine for historic section sizes in iron
accurate ways of predicting their behaviour. For the most part, Steelwork Handbook and steel and permissible stresses from a variety of historic codes
existing structures behave similarly to new structures. Gravity from before 1900 to 1948. The manner in which section stability and
buckling were dealt with in these codes is also described. Perhaps
acts identically for both. most usefully, it also tracks changes in live load allowances in this
period
Handbook of Steel Dorman Long’s 1895 handbook may be freely downloaded from
REFERENCES Sections its website and contains section properties and span tables for an
enormous range of monolithic and compound steel girders
Historical approaches Concrete Society Technical Report 70 describes UK elastic design
1) British Standards Institution (1932) BS 449:1932 to the design of methods, material strengths and safety factors from the early 20th
The use of structural steel in building, London: BSI concrete buildings century
(withdrawn) and structures
Office floor loading in This English Heritage publication has successfully been used to
2) Poole I. (2020) ‘Rationalisation versus optimisation
historic buildings argue in favour of lower live load allowances in historic buildings,
– getting the balance right in changing times’, The particularly where adherence to BS 6399 or EN 1991 would result in
Structural Engineer, 98 (10), pp. 18–21 disruption of listed fabric
3) Bates W. (1984) Historical Structural Steelwork Structural renovation CIRIA R111 is a concise but invaluable guide to traditional
Handbook, London: BCSA of traditional buildings construction materials and techniques, with many useful diagrams
and isometrics showing how some details and concepts were
4) Foster J. (2021) ‘What do you do when you are intended to work – something that’s not always legible in situ after a
convinced the structure will work but can’t prove it to century or more of wear and weathering
code?’, The Structural Engineer, 99 (6), pp. 18–22
Appraisal of existing This IStructE publication also contains comprehensive, step-by-
5) Institution of Structural Engineers (2010) Appraisal structures (3rd ed.) step guidance for structural engineers needing to check and report
of existing structures (3rd ed.), London: IStructE Ltd on the adequacy of an existing structure

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