#Umar #Mufid #Building and #Responsibility #Engineers
One of the ambiguities in the national regulations and other laws related to the civil engineering community, and of course for the expert community, is the non-transparency and vagueness of the definition of the useful life of a building.
In spite of the fact that in topic 2, the duration of the quality insurance of the building has been determined from the beginning of the operation and after the delivery of the building by the contractor to the owner or contractors in different parts of the building {the duration as described below}, but the rules regarding the duration The responsibility of the engineers towards the building is silent:
Building structures, including foundation, skeleton, roof and stiffening work for at least 10 years;
building facade, at least 5 years;
Building waterproofing for at least 5 years;
Mechanical and electrical equipment and installations, elevators, at least 3 years.
What factors does the useful life of the building depend on?
Is it possible to limit the useful life of the building only to the quality of the materials?
Or should other factors be considered?
According to the author, the useful life of the building can be divided into two factors (structural) and materials (type and quality, execution method, maintenance and exploitation of materials).
Structural factors can include the following: type of soil, foundation, climatic and geographical conditions of the region, type of building in terms of use, type of structural frame (brick, clay, block, concrete, metal, etc.)
Anyway, the sub-branches of the above-mentioned two factors are very diverse and it is very difficult for experts to consider all those factors and it requires a lot of expertise and experience in the matter of calculation, design, implementation and supervision in the matter of construction and due to its diversity Factors can cause errors in determining the useful life of the building for experts.
Another way to calculate the useful life of the building is to use and refer to the 2800 regulation.
If the structure of the desired building is designed and built according to the regulations of the 2800 regulations and according to the return period of the earthquake defined in the relevant regulations, the minimum useful life of the building can be estimated.
According to this regulation (clauses 1-1 and 2-1 of the 4th edition), the building must be resistant to an earthquake with a probability of less than ten percent during the useful life of the building (50 years).
Also, buildings taller than 50 meters or more than 15 floors must be resistant to special criteria for the effect caused by an earthquake at the operational level, which is more than 50.99% more likely to occur in 50 years.
Therefore, it is considered that in terms of load bearing, the building must be resistant for at least 50 years.
The fact is that in the silence of the laws and if the above-mentioned argument is accepted, the useful life of the building should be considered equal to the useful life of the engineer!
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