EFFECT OF DYNAMIC PATTERN OF THE SAPROLITIC ZONE AND ITS BASEMENT ON BUILDING STABILITY: A CASE STUDY OF A HIGH-RISE BUILDING IN OGBOMOSO

The importance of stability and the resistance to horizontal forces imposed on a building cannot be overemphasized as the alarming rate of structural failure such as roads, buildings, dams and bridges has become more intense throughout the globe. These failures have been traced to subsurface instability and its geological features. When building fails, it’s usually goes with loss of lives and properties. The need for pre-foundation studies using geophysical approach has been found as the only remedy for this ugly incidence. This approach will map the subsurface in order to predict the nature of the proposed site for construction. A geophysical survey involving Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) were employed at a proposed site for high-rise building. This research was done in order to infer whether the subsurface is competent to withstand high-rise structure or not. The results of ERT and VES showed that the subsurface would not be able to withstand high-rise building in order to avert deadly collapse which might have happened in the investigated area in the future. However, the proposed high-rise building is hereby advised to be relocated to another site.