Methodology for the collapse of a monolithic reinforced concrete elevator building

Introduction. Dismantling of buildings using explosive energy is an urgent problem, as the process is complicated by a large number of different geometric parameters of collapsed structures, which may not fit the existing collapse methodology, thus complicating the process of dismantling the building. An example of such a collapse object is a monolithic reinforced concrete elevator in the city of Yaroslavl. If the building collapses on its base, the elevator, due to the great strength of the building material, will not collapse. For the collapse of the structure in a given direction, it will be necessary to make a cutout with a large value of height and angle, which will be a difficult technical problem. The authors propose a method to reduce the height of the cut and the volume of special blasting operations.

Materials and methods. The calculation took into account the kinetic energy acquired by the building at the time of the explosion, which created additional forces contributing to its collapse. These forces were not taken into account in the calculations according to the existing methodology. According to the results of the calculation, the volume of drilling and blasting operations was reduced by reducing the values of the angle and height of the cut, which amounted to 21.5° and 3.94 m, respectively. These values are 1.6 times less compared to the results obtained using the existing methodology, where the height of the cut was 6.5 m at an angle of 32°.

Results. The calculated blast parameters were applied to the design of blasting operations for the demolition of four silo buildings of a grain elevator in Yaroslavl. All buildings were successfully demolished, which confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

Conclusions. The blasting operations demonstrated high efficiency and practical significance of the developed method. The proposed method allows to reduce the size of the cut by 40 % compared to the existing method, which simplifies and speeds up the performance of special blasting operations, reducing the risks to surrounding objects and increasing the safety of workers by reducing the number of explosives.

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