Ground temperature variations have been analysed to the depth of 160 cm, with respect to meteorological elements and short-wave radiation balance. The database of the ground temperature covers a thirteen month-long period (May 1992 – June 1993), which included both the seasons of complete freezing of the ground and thaw. Special attention has been given to the development of perennial permafrost and its spatial distribution. In summer, the depth of thawing ground varied in different types of ground — at the Polish Polar Station, this was ca. 130 cm. The ground froze completely in the first week of October. Its thawing started in June. The snow cover restrained heat penetration in the ground, which hindered the ground thawing process. Cross-correlation shows a significant influence of the radiation balance (K*) on the values of near-surface ground temperatures (r2 = 0.62 for summer).
People living in buildings may be exposed to dynamic actions. In the diagnosis and design of buildings there is an increasing need of taking into account these activities and verification of compliance of the building requirements for vibration comfort of people residing in buildings. This study presents the results of analysis of such criteria in the following standards: Polish PN-88/B-02171 [1], British BS 6472-1 [2], German DIN 4150 [3], and ISO international standards [4,5]. Basing on the results of this analysis and on the review of selected items of literature, the application of standards recommendations in diagnosis and design of buildings, as well as areas for further research on this subject is indicated. This article is an extended version of the conference paper [6] presented on the conference Urban Transport 2011.
The paper presents the description of structure and the selected problems of the technical condition, as well as the strength analysis of the thin-walled reinforced concrete shell which has been making a covering of the main hall of the Gdynia Seaport Building through the last 80 years. The rectangle projection of four single curvature shells of the dome was shaped out of mutual perpendicular intersection of two cylindrical shells.
The analysis of the state of stress and deformations was carried out using the special model worked out in MES considering the combination of loads, the thermal ones included. For the long lasting loads (the deadweight of the dome), the computed results of static quantities were confronted with analytical results obtained according to F. Dischinger’s method. This method had been applied by the DYWIDAG Company in Berlin and its branch in Katowice (Poland) who designed the Gdynia Dome.
The computational analysis and the assessment of the technical state, along with laboratory pH tests of concrete, made it possible to carry out the overall evaluation of durability and safety of operation of the Gdynia Seaport Dome through the next decades.