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Structural Investigation of Historic Buildings

Structural Investigation of Historic Buildings: A Case Study Guide to Preservation Technology for Buildings, Bridges, Towers, and Mills. David. C. Fischetti 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Structural Investigation of Historic Buildings

A Case Study Guide to Preservation Technology for Buildings, Bridges, Towers, and Mills

David C. Fischetti

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or tness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of prot or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Fischetti, David C. Structural investigation of historic buildings : a case study guide to preservation technology for buildings, bridges, towers, and mills / David C. Fischetti. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-470-18967-2 (cloth) 1. Building inspection. 2. Historic buildingsConservation and restorationCase studies. 3. Historic preservationConservation and restoration Case studies. 4. Structural engineeringUnited States. I. Title. TH439.F55 2008 720.28'8dc22 2008038581 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents
Introduction Acknowledgments CHAPTER 1 Historic Structures: The Role of the Structural Engineer Preservation and Public Safety: Structural Safety of Historic Timber Structures Simplied Engineering Conservation and the Specialty Contractor Historic Timber Structures Watauga Hall and the Montague Building The Restoration of St. Helenas Church Market Hall Rehabilitation Differential Settlement at St. Philips Moravian Church at Old Salem vii x

CHAPTER 2

15 21 41 57 71 91 115

CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9

123 139 149

CHAPTER 10 James Madisons Montpelier CHAPTER 11 Timber, Glulam, and Conservation

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Contents

CHAPTER 12 Tabby: Engineering Characteristics of a Vernacular Construction Material 169 CHAPTER 13 Relocating the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse CHAPTER 14 Crisis in American Covered Bridges CHAPTER 15 The Timber Trusses of Burr, Town, and Haupt CHAPTER 16 The Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge CHAPTER 17 A New Covered Bridge for Old Salem CHAPTER 18 The Tohickon Aqueduct CHAPTER 19 The Current State of Historic Preservation Engineering: One Engineers Point of View Index 181 207 211 227 241 253

263 271

Introduction
n North America, our built environment of what is commonly referred to as historic structures typically includes everything 50 years of age or older. These structures are as diverse as Montezuma Castle, a cliff dwelling of mud and stone constructed in Arizona about 1150 A.D., to Dorton Arena, the worlds rst cablesupported roof system, built in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1952. The purpose of this book is to help prepare consulting structural engineers and others to deal with issues unique to historic structures. This book will also explore the reasons why engineering practitioners tend to shy away from these projects. Unfortunately, for liability concerns, and other reasons, few American structural engineers have embraced a preservation philosophy that allows for the continued use of our architectural and structural heritage. And yet, with the possible exception of the absence of timber design in some programs, civil engineering curricula in most North American universities should adequately equip the graduate engineer with sufcient skills to address the varied challenges posed by evaluation and condition assessment through observation, measurement, analysis, and testing. The case studies in this book are not totally representative of the full array of possible building types that may be encountered by the great majority of structural engineers. As case studies, they represent the particular experience encountered in one consulting structural engineers practice. The building types may be somewhat skewed by my experience in timber design and my geographic location, and specically, the states where I am registered to practice engineering. This book can serve as a text in preservation courses for students of many disciplines. Whether the curriculum is history, architecture, art history, planning, engineering, construction management, or materials based, there is a need for the students who are anticipating a preservation career to know what to expect from their structural engineer team members or consultants. The seasoned structural engineer will nd information useful to projects involving existing buildings to the extent that one may wish to obtain continuing education credits in the eld to fulll registration obligations, or obtain some certicate or advanced degree in historic preservation.

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Introduction

Conservation of our existing structures has obvious economic and social value. The success of various structural engineering solutions can be told through case studies to a wider audience, so that potential candidates for restoration, rehabilitation, or adaptive reuse, do not meet the wrecking ball without a second chance.

EVALUATING A TIMBER STRUCTURE

Our procedure for evaluating an existing framed building or roof structure, historic or not, is to apply todays code mandated snow, live, and wind and seismic loads to various component systems, assuming that no deterioration has occurred. In this way, the original structure can be tested with specic load criteria, against reasonable allowable design values so that the amount of stress in various elements can be tabulated and compared to allowables. By performing a computer analysis, the stiffness in various components, and the continuity, or lack of continuity, through joints, can be included, resulting in accurate theoretical deections. The computed deections can then be compared to todays code mandated limits for structures. Once this process is completed, then a review of the amount of stress in particular elements can be compared against reasonable values that could be expected from the materials used at the time the building was constructed. After structural analysis is complete, then a condition analysis can be made on the basis of eld observation, measurement, and testing. Ideally, it is best to have at least a preliminary analysis in hand prior to actually observing conditions in the eld. In reality, we often are responding to the clients wishes to inspect the structure as soon as possible, without benet of measured drawings from the architect or prior information of any kind. Through analysis and engineering judgment, the capacity of various components can be tabulated to account for deterioration. The theoretical deection can be compared to the actual deformation of the structure as measured in the eld. Each study will be presented with emphasis on the structural evaluation and condition assessment. Each section will include a description of the project and its history, a condition assessment, structural analysis, discussion, recommendations and a description of the subsequent intervention as executed with drawings and photographs.

WHY THE BOOK IS NEEDED

Tasks as simple as determining the grades and applicable design values for timber components and how to apply the effects of load duration to the evaluation of historic timber structures need to be included in a preservation engineering

Introduction

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text. Reservations in the evaluation of wrought iron, and the unknowns associated with determining the capacity of unreinforced historic masonry or archaic concrete systems, are but a few of the issues leading to the wholesale destruction of potentially serviceable buildings and bridges. For example, not knowing the effects on strength of slag inclusions in wrought iron has caused structural engineers to automatically call for the replacement, with new steel, of all the possibly perfectly serviceable wrought iron tension rods in many building trusses and historic bridges. This book will also raise some questions that will be of interest to the research community. Historic structures provide an excellent laboratory to study aspects of structural engineering, materials science, forensic engineering, and building design. This book emphasizes a preservation philosophy that stresses achieving structural safety using traditional materials, based on modern analysis, measurement, and testing techniques. It is not a compilation of available ASTM tests or a documentation of various archaic structural systems. Lessons learned in historic preservation make us better designers of new structures.