Influence of environmental factors on buildings deformations using non-destructive tests: Hilla city in Iraq as a case study.

Building distortions due to some environmental factors refer to problems and diseases that lead to distortions and defects in buildings, which are caused by climatic causes and natural environmental factors. Understanding its causes and the imbalance resulting from it, and trying to measure it, enables preventive measures to be taken to avoid their occurrence, and enables to treatment. Through the field visits that took place in Babil Governorate, it was observed that a large number of buildings were distorted due to various environmental factors such as rain, humidity and heat, which led to distortion in the buildings from an aesthetic and the structural behavior. Sixty two buildings of different uses were monitored and were under the influence of a number of environmental factors. The monitoring method, follow up and some non-destructive tests were used to collect data, and then the data were analyzed using comparison tables. In this paper, it was concluded that the most important environmental factor affecting buildings is humidity, which is determined by more than 68% and is considered one of the most important problems that lead to building deformations and cracks, followed by the effect of soil. It was also found that the influence of other factors such as light, temperature and wind is very small compared to other factors. Also, some sources of moisture that affect building deformations in the city of Babylon have been identified, the most important of which are ground water and wastewater. Then, a number of proposals and recommendations that contribute to reducing these distortions were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]