Kiruna Hospital Building

Background

Kiruna city has experienced ground subsidence and vibrations due to mining activities within the last years. This has caused cracks and inconveniences for the occupants in some buildings in the city. The hospital building has also been affected and cracks have developed in different parts of it. However, the cracks exhibit limited dimensions in both width and length and have not compromised the overall performance of the building. Nonetheless, these cracks may further, especially when mining operation is in progress in the region and can cause limitations to the use of building and even cause partial or total structural collapse. Therefore, crack development of the building needs to be constantly monitored and its structural performance to accurately be evaluated using finite element analysis.

Aim and objectives

The aim of this project is to evaluate the structural performance of Kiruna hospital building under the mining-induced loads and predict its behaviour under different damage scenarios.

The objective of the project is to assess the current condition of building through visual inspection, and to accurately estimate the damage extent using finite element analysis and provide some solutions for the retrofit intervention.

Facts
Financer: LKAB company with contract number 1443562.

Timeline: Project start in 06-23 and Project end (planned) in 05-24.

Principal Investigator: Gabriel Sas, Jaime Gonzalez.

Team members: Maysam Jalilkhani, Vedad Coric, and Mert Pinar.