![Hopfallen lada vid Hörsne Gotland Sverige](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Hopfallen_lada_vid_H%C3%B6rsne_Gotland_Sverige.jpg)
Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed
structural load
A structural load or structural action is a force, deformation, or acceleration applied to structural elements. A load causes stress, deformation, and displacement in a structure. Structural analysis, a discipline in engineering, analyzes the ef ...
(weight, force, etc.) without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to prevent failures in future designs.
Structural integrity is the ability of an item—either a structural component or a structure consisting of many components—to hold together under a load, including its own weight, without breaking or deforming excessively. It assures that the construction will perform its designed function during reasonable use, for as long as its intended life span. Items are constructed with structural integrity to prevent
catastrophic failure, which can result in injuries, severe damage, death, and/or monetary losses.
''Structural failure'' refers to the loss of structural integrity, or the loss of
load-carrying capacity in either a structural component or the
structure
A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
itself. Structural failure is initiated when a
material
Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologi ...
is stressed beyond its
strength
Strength may refer to:
Physical strength
*Physical strength, as in people or animals
* Hysterical strength, extreme strength occurring when people are in life-and-death situations
*Superhuman strength, great physical strength far above human c ...
limit, causing fracture or excessive
deformations; one
limit state
Limit State Design (LSD), also known as Load And Resistance Factor Design (LRFD), refers to a design method used in structural engineering. A limit state is a condition of a structure beyond which it no longer fulfills the relevant design criteria ...
that must be accounted for in structural design is ultimate failure strength. In a well designed system, a localized failure should not cause immediate or even progressive collapse of the entire structure.
Introduction
Structural integrity is the ability of a structure to withstand its intended loading without failing due to fracture, deformation, or fatigue. It is a concept often used in engineering to produce items that will serve their designed purposes and remain functional for a desired
service life
A product's service life is its period of use in service. Several related terms describe more precisely a product's life, from the point of manufacture, storage, and distribution, and eventual use.
Service life has been defined as "a product li ...
.
To construct an item with structural integrity, an engineer must first consider a material's mechanical properties, such as
toughness
In materials science and metallurgy, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing.[strength
Strength may refer to:
Physical strength
*Physical strength, as in people or animals
* Hysterical strength, extreme strength occurring when people are in life-and-death situations
*Superhuman strength, great physical strength far above human c ...]
, weight,
hardness
In materials science, hardness (antonym: softness) is a measure of the resistance to localized plastic deformation induced by either mechanical indentation or abrasion. In general, different materials differ in their hardness; for example hard ...
, and elasticity, and then determine the size and shape necessary for the material to withstand the desired load for a long life. Since members can neither break nor bend excessively, they must be both stiff and tough. A very stiff material may resist bending, but unless it is sufficiently tough, it may have to be very large to support a load without breaking. On the other hand, a highly elastic material will bend under a load even if its high toughness prevents fracture.
Furthermore, each component's integrity must correspond to its individual application in any load-bearing structure. Bridge supports need a high
yield strength
In materials science and engineering, the yield point is the point on a stress-strain curve that indicates the limit of elastic behavior and the beginning of plastic behavior. Below the yield point, a material will deform elastically and wi ...
, whereas the bolts that hold them need good
shear
Shear may refer to:
Textile production
*Animal shearing, the collection of wool from various species
**Sheep shearing
*The removal of nap during wool cloth production
Science and technology Engineering
*Shear strength (soil), the shear strength ...
and
tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...
. Springs need good elasticity, but
lathe
A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to c ...
tooling needs high rigidity. In addition, the entire structure must be able to support its load without its weakest links failing, as this can put more stress on other structural elements and lead to
cascading failure
A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts leads to the failure of other parts, growing progressively as a result of positive feedback. This can occur when a single part fails, i ...
s.
History
The need to build structures with integrity goes back as far as recorded history. Houses needed to be able to support their own weight, plus the weight of the inhabitants. Castles needed to be fortified to withstand assaults from invaders. Tools needed to be strong and tough enough to do their jobs. However, the science of
fracture mechanics as it exists today was not developed until the 1920s, when
Alan Arnold Griffith
Alan Arnold Griffith (13 June 1893 – 13 October 1963), son of Victorian science fiction writer George Griffith, was an English engineer. Among many other contributions he is best known for his work on stress and fracture in metals that is n ...
studied the
brittle fracture
Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...
of glass.
Starting in the 1940s, the infamous failures of several new technologies made a more scientific method for analyzing structural failures necessary. During World War II, over 200 welded-steel ships broke in half due to brittle fracture, caused by stresses created from the welding process, temperature changes, and by the
stress concentrations at the square corners of the bulkheads. In the 1950s, several
De Havilland Comet
The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four ...
s exploded in mid-flight due to stress concentrations at the corners of their squared windows, which caused cracks to form and the pressurized cabins to explode.
Boiler explosion
A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. There are two types of boiler explosions. One type is a failure of the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. There can be many different causes, such as failure of the safety valve ...
s, caused by failures in pressurized boiler tanks, were another common problem during this era, and caused severe damage. The growing sizes of bridges and buildings led to even greater catastrophes and loss of life. This need to build constructions with structural integrity led to great advances in the fields of material sciences and fracture mechanics.
[''Assuring structural integrity in army systems'' By National Research Council (U.S.). National Materials Advisory Board, National Research Council (U.S.). Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Assurance of Structural Integrity – 1985 Page 1—19][''Structural Integrity Monitoring'' By R.A. Collacott – Chapman and Hall 1985 Page 1—5]
Types of failure
![Negaunee Bus Barn Collapse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Negaunee_Bus_Barn_Collapse.jpg)
Structural failure can occur from many types of problems, most of which are unique to different industries and structural types. However, most can be traced to one of five main causes.
* The first is that the structure is not strong and tough enough to support the load, due to either its size, shape, or choice of material. If the structure or component is not strong enough, catastrophic failure can occur when the structure is stressed beyond its critical stress level.
* The second type of failure is from fatigue or corrosion, caused by instability in the structure's geometry, design or material properties. These failures usually begin when cracks form at stress points, such as squared corners or bolt holes too close to the material's edge. These cracks grow as the material is repeatedly stressed and unloaded (cyclic loading), eventually reaching a critical length and causing the structure to suddenly fail under normal loading conditions.
* The third type of failure is caused by manufacturing errors, including improper selection of materials, incorrect sizing, improper
heat treating
Heat treating (or heat treatment) is a group of industrial, thermal and metalworking processes used to alter the physical, and sometimes chemical, properties of a material. The most common application is metallurgical. Heat treatments are also ...
, failing to adhere to the design, or shoddy workmanship. This type of failure can occur at any time and is usually unpredictable.
* The fourth type of failure is from the use of defective materials. This type of failure is also unpredictable, since the material may have been improperly manufactured or damaged from prior use.
* The fifth cause of failure is from lack of consideration of unexpected problems. This type of failure can be caused by events such as vandalism, sabotage, or natural disasters. It can also occur if those who use and maintain the construction are not properly trained and overstress the structure.
Notable failures
Bridges
Dee bridge
![Dee bridge disaster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Dee_bridge_disaster.jpg)
The Dee bridge was designed by
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...
, using
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
girders reinforced with wrought iron struts. On 24 May 1847, it collapsed as a train passed over it, killing five people. Its collapse was the subject of one of the first formal inquiries into a structural failure. This inquiry concluded that the design of the structure was fundamentally flawed, as the
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
did not reinforce the cast iron, and that the casting had failed due to repeated flexing.
First Tay Rail Bridge
The Dee bridge disaster was followed by a number of
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
bridge collapses, including the collapse of the first
Tay Rail Bridge
The Tay Bridge ( gd, Drochaid-rèile na Tatha) carries the railway across the Firth of Tay in Scotland between Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife. Its span is . It is the second bridge to occupy the site.
Plans for a bridge over the Tay to ...
on 28 December 1879. Like the Dee bridge, the Tay collapsed when a train passed over it, killing 75 people. The bridge failed because it was constructed from poorly made cast iron, and because designer Thomas Bouch failed to consider wind loading on it. Its collapse resulted in cast iron being replaced by steel construction, and a complete redesign in 1890 of the
Forth Railway Bridge
The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
, making it the first entirely steel bridge in the world.
First Tacoma Narrows Bridge
The 1940 collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge is sometimes characterized in physics textbooks as a classic example of resonance, although this description is misleading. The catastrophic vibrations that destroyed the bridge were not due to simple mechanical resonance, but to a more complicated oscillation between the bridge and winds passing through it, known as
aeroelastic flutter
Aeroelasticity is the branch of physics and engineering studying the interactions between the inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces occurring while an elastic body is exposed to a fluid flow. The study of aeroelasticity may be broadly classif ...
.
Robert H. Scanlan, a leading contributor to the understanding of bridge aerodynamics, wrote an article about this misunderstanding. This collapse, and the research that followed, led to an increased understanding of wind/structure interactions. Several bridges were altered following the collapse to prevent a similar event occurring again. The only fatality was a dog named Tubby.
[
]
I-35W Bridge
The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (officially known simply as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane steel truss arch bridge
A truss arch bridge combines the elements of the truss bridge and the arch bridge. The actual resolution of forces will depend upon the design. If no horizontal thrusting forces are generated this becomes an arch-shaped truss, essentially a bent b ...
that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
in Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, Minnesota, United States. The bridge was completed in 1967, and its maintenance was performed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT, ) oversees transportation by all modes including land, water, air, rail, walking and bicycling in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The cabinet-level agency is responsible for maintaining the state' ...
. The bridge was Minnesota's fifth–busiest,[ Index map for Mn/DOT's 2006 traffic volumes; relevant maps showing the highest river bridge traffic volumes are Maps 2E, 3E, and 3F.] carrying 140,000 vehicles daily.[ This map shows average daily traffic volumes for downtown Minneapolis. Trunk highway and Interstate volumes are from 2006.] The bridge catastrophically failed during the evening rush hour
A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...
on 1 August 2007, collapsing to the river and riverbanks beneath. Thirteen people were killed and 145 were injured. Following the collapse, the Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
advised states to inspect the 700 U.S. bridges of similar construction after a possible design flaw in the bridge was discovered, related to large steel sheets called gusset plate
Gusset plate is a plate for connecting beams and girders to columns. A gusset plate can be fastened to a permanent member either by bolts, rivets or welding or a combination of the three. They are used in bridges and buildings, as well as oth ...
s which were used to connect girder
A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizing ' ...
s together in the truss structure.[ Officials expressed concern about many other bridges in the United States sharing the same design and raised questions as to why such a flaw would not have been discovered in over 40 years of inspections.]
Buildings
Thane building collapse
On 4 April 2013, a building collapsed on tribal land in Mumbra
Mumbra () is a suburb of Thane district in Western India in the state of Maharashtra, Mumbai extension and within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region area. It is administered by Thane Municipal Corporation. Mumbra is mostly famous for its Bombay sla ...
, a suburb of Thane
Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven talukas ...
in Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
, India.["Is Municipality as much to blame as builders for Thane building collapse?"](_blank)
''IBN''. 4 April 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2013. It has been called the worst building collapse
Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed structural load (weight, force, etc.) without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to ...
in the area: 74 people died, including 18 children, 23 women, and 33 men, while more than 100 people survived.
The building was under construction and did not have an occupancy certificate for its 100 to 150 low- to middle-income residents[
; its only occupants were the site construction workers and their families. The building was reported to have been illegally constructed because standard practices were not followed for safe, lawful construction, land acquisition and resident occupancy.
By 11 April, a total of 15 suspects were arrested including ]builders
Builder may refer to:
* Construction worker, who specializes in building work
* Carpenter, a skilled craftsman who works with wood
* General contractor, that specializes in building work
** Subcontractor
* Builder (detergent), a component of mode ...
, engineers, municipal officials, and other responsible parties. Governmental records indicate that there were two orders to manage the number of illegal buildings in the area: a 2005 Maharashtra state order to use remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...
and a 2010 Bombay High Court order. Complaints were also made to state and municipal officials.
On 9 April, the Thane Municipal Corporation
Thane Municipal Corporation is the governing body of the city of Thane in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The municipal corporation consisting of democratically elected members, is headed by a mayor and administers the city's infrastructure, p ...
began a campaign to demolish illegal buildings in the area, focusing on "dangerous" buildings, and set up a call center to accept and track the resolutions of complaints about illegal buildings. The forest department, meanwhile, promised to address encroachment of forest land in the Thane District.
Savar building collapse
On 24 April 2013, ''Rana Plaza'', an eight-storey commercial building, collapsed in Savar
Savar ( bn, সাভার) is a city in central Bangladesh, located in Dhaka District in the Dhaka Division, division of Dhaka. It is the closest city from Dhaka. It is also a part of Greater Dhaka conurbation which forms the Greater Dhaka, D ...
, a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area
Greater Dhaka is the conurbation surrounding the Bangladeshi capital city of Dhaka, which has grown into one of the world's largest megacities, and shows a very rapid rate of expansion. Dhaka not only grows because it is the capital and largest ur ...
, the capital of Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
. The search for the dead ended on 13 May with the death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued from the building alive.
It is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history.
The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments, and several other shops. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in the building. Warnings to avoid using the building after cracks appeared the day before had been ignored. Garment workers were ordered to return the following day and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour.
Sampoong Department Store collapse
On 29 June 1995, the five-story Sampoong Department Store
On June 29, 1995, the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, South Korea, collapsed due to a structural failure. The collapse killed 502 people and injured 937, making it the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history. It was the deadlies ...
in the Seocho District
Seocho District () is one of the 25 '' gu'' (local government districts) which make up the city of Seoul, South Korea. Seocho is generally referred to as a part of Greater Gangnam Area, along with Gangnam District. As of 2022, Seocho District ra ...
of Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
, South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
collapsed resulting in the deaths of 502 people, with another 1,445 being trapped.
In April 1995, cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the fifth floor of the store's south wing due to the presence of an air-conditioning unit on the weakened roof of the poorly built structure. On the morning of 29 June, as the number of cracks in the ceiling increased dramatically, store managers closed the top floor and shut off the air conditioning, but failed to shut the building down or issue formal evacuation orders as the executives themselves left the premises as a precaution.
Five hours before the collapse, the first of several loud bangs was heard emanating from the top floors, as the vibration of the air conditioning caused the cracks in the slabs to widen further. Amid customer reports of vibration in the building, the air conditioning was turned off but, the cracks in the floors had already grown to 10 cm wide. At about 5:00 p.m. local time, the fifth-floor ceiling began to sink, and at 5:57 p.m., the roof gave way, sending the air conditioning unit crashing through into the already-overloaded fifth floor.
Ronan Point
On 16 May 1968, the 22-story residential tower Ronan Point
Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire cor ...
in the London Borough of Newham collapsed when a relatively small gas explosion on the 18th floor caused a structural wall panel to be blown away from the building. The tower was constructed of precast
Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples include precast bea ...
concrete, and the failure of the single panel caused one entire corner of the building to collapse. The panel was able to be blown out because there was insufficient reinforcement steel passing between the panels. This also meant that the loads carried by the panel could not be redistributed to other adjacent panels, because there was no route for the forces to follow. As a result of the collapse, building regulations were overhauled to prevent disproportionate collapse and the understanding of precast concrete detailing was greatly advanced. Many similar buildings were altered or demolished as a result of the collapse.
Oklahoma City bombing
On 19 April 1995, the nine-story concrete framed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States federal government complex located at 200 N.W. 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On April 19, 1995, at 9:02 a.m. the building was the target of the Oklahoma City bombing ...
in Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
was struck by a truck bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
causing partial collapse, resulting in the deaths of 168 people. The bomb, though large, caused a significantly disproportionate collapse of the structure. The bomb blew all the glass off the front of the building and completely shattered a ground floor reinforced concrete column A reinforced concrete column is a structural member designed to carry compressive loads, composed of concrete with an embedded steel frame to provide reinforcement. For design purposes, the columns are separated into two categories: short colum ...
(see brisance
In explosives engineering, brisance (; , ) is the shattering capability of a high explosive, determined mainly by its detonation pressure.
Practical uses
Brisance is of practical importance for determining the effectiveness of an explosion in ...
). At second story level a wider column spacing existed, and loads from upper story columns were transferred into fewer columns below by girders at second floor level. The removal of one of the lower story columns caused neighbouring columns to fail due to the extra load, eventually leading to the complete collapse of the central portion of the building. The bombing was one of the first to highlight the extreme forces that blast loading from terrorism can exert on buildings, and led to increased consideration of terrorism in structural design of buildings.
Versailles wedding hall
The Versailles wedding hall ( he, אולמי ורסאי), located in Talpiot
Talpiot ( he, תלפיות, literally 'turrets' or 'magnificently built') is an Israeli neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1922 by Zionist pioneers. It was built as a garden suburb on land purchased by the Tel Aviv-based P ...
, Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, is the site of the worst civil disaster in Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
's history. At 22:43 on Thursday night, 24 May 2001 during the wedding of Keren and Asaf Dror, a large portion of the third floor of the four-story building collapsed, killing 23 people. The bride and the groom survived.
World Trade Center Towers 1, 2, and 7
In the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, two commercial airliners were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
in New York City. The impact and resulting fires caused both towers to collapse within less than two hours. The impacts severed exterior columns and damaged core columns, redistributing the loads that these columns had carried. This redistribution of loads was greatly influenced by the hat trusses at the top of each building. The impacts dislodged some of the fireproofing from the steel, increasing its exposure to the heat of the fires. Temperatures became high enough to weaken the core columns to the point of creep and plastic deformation
In engineering, deformation refers to the change in size or shape of an object. ''Displacements'' are the ''absolute'' change in position of a point on the object. Deflection is the relative change in external displacements on an object. Strain ...
under the weight of higher floors. The heat of the fires also weakened the perimeter columns and floors, causing the floors to sag and exerting an inward force on exterior walls of the building. WTC Building 7 also collapsed later that day; the 47 story skyscraper collapsed within seconds due to a combination of a large fire inside the building and heavy structural damage from the collapse of the North Tower.
Champlain Towers
On 24 June 2021, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condominium building in Surfside, Florida partially collapsed, causing dozens of injuries and 98 deaths. The collapse was captured on video. One person was rescued from the rubble, and about 35 people were rescued on 24 June from the uncollapsed portion of the building. Long-term degradation of reinforced concrete-support structures in the underground parking garage, due to water penetration and corrosion of the reinforcing steel, has been considered as a factor in—or the cause of—the collapse. The issues had been reported in 2018 and noted as "much worse" in April 2021. A$15 million program of remedial works had been approved at the time of the collapse.
Aircraft
Repeat structural failures on the same type of aircraft occurred in 1954, when two de Havilland Comet C1 jet airliners crashed due to decompression caused by metal fatigue
In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...
, and in 1963–64, when the vertical stabilizer
A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, sta ...
on four Boeing B-52 bombers broke off in mid-air.
Other
Warsaw Radio Mast
On 8 August 1991 at 16:00 UTC Warsaw radio mast, the tallest man-made object ever built before the erection of Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa (; ar, برج خليفة, , Khalifa Tower), known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is known for being the world’s tallest building. With a total height ...
collapsed as consequence of an error in exchanging the guy-wires on the highest stock. The mast first bent and then snapped at roughly half its height. It destroyed at its collapse a small mobile crane of Mostostal Zabrze. As all workers had left the mast before the exchange procedures, there were no fatalities, in contrast to the similar collapse of the WLBT Tower
The WLBT Tower was a guy-wired aerial mast for the transmission of FM radio and TV-programs in Raymond, Mississippi, United States, for the Jackson metro area. The mast was constructed in 1966. On October 23, 1997, the mast, which was property of ...
in 1997.
Hyatt Regency walkway
On 17 July 1981, two suspended walkways through the lobby of the Hyatt Regency
Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacat ...
in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
, collapsed, killing 114 and injuring more than 200 people at a tea dance. The collapse was due to a late change in design, altering the method in which the rods supporting the walkways were connected to them, and inadvertently doubling the forces on the connection. The failure highlighted the need for good communication between design engineers and contractors, and rigorous checks on designs and especially on contractor-proposed design changes. The failure is a standard case study on engineering courses around the world, and is used to teach the importance of ethics in engineering.[Whitbeck, C. (1998) p.115]
See also
* Structural analysis
Structural analysis is a branch of Solid Mechanics which uses simplified models for solids like bars, beams and shells for engineering decision making. Its main objective is to determine the effect of loads on the physical structures and thei ...
* Structural robustness
Robustness is the ability of a structure to withstand events like fire, explosions, impact or the consequences of human error, without being damaged to an extent disproportionate to the original causeas defined in EN 1991-1-7 of the Accidental Ac ...
* Catastrophic failure
* Earthquake engineering
* Porch collapse Porch collapse or balcony collapse is a phenomenon typically associated with older or poorly constructed multi-storey apartment buildings that have wooden porch extensions on the front or rear of the building. The collapses have a number of causes, ...
* Forensic engineering
Forensic engineering has been defined as ''"the investigation of failures - ranging from serviceability to catastrophic - which may lead to legal activity, including both civil and criminal".'' It includes the investigation of materials, produc ...
* Progressive collapse
Progressive collapse is the process where a primary structural element fails, resulting in the failure of adjoining structural elements, which in turn causes further structural failure.
Progressive collapses may be accidental, as the result of d ...
* Seismic performance
Seismic analysis is a subset of structural analysis and is the calculation of the response of a building (or nonbuilding) structure to earthquakes. It is part of the process of structural design, earthquake engineering or structural assessment ...
* Serviceability failure
* Structural fracture mechanics
* Collapse zone
A collapse zone is an area around a structure, usually a burning structure, that may suffer structural collapse. A collapse zone affects firefighters working on the exterior of a structure.
Signs of structural failure
The first indicator of po ...
* Engineering disasters
* Tofu-dreg project
"Tofu-dreg project" () is a phrase used in the Chinese-speaking world to describe a poorly constructed building, sometimes called just "Tofu buildings". The phrase was coined by Zhu Rongji, the former premier of the People's Republic of China, ...
* Urban Search and Rescue
Urban search and rescue (abbreviated as USAR or US&R) is a type of technical rescue operation that involves the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in an urban area, namely structural collapse due to natu ...
* List of structural failures and collapses
This is a list of structural failures and collapses, including bridges, dams, and radio masts/towers.
Buildings and other fixed human-made structures
Antiquity to the Middle Ages
17th–19th centuries
1900–1949
1950-1979
1980–2000 ...
References
;Notes
;Citations
;Bibliography
* Feld, Jacob; Carper, Kenneth L. (1997). ''Construction Failure''. John Wiley & Sons. .
* Lewis, Peter R. (2007). ''Disaster on the Dee.'' Tempus.
* Petroski, Henry (1994). ''Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering''. Cambridge University Press. .
* Scott, Richard (2001). ''In the Wake of Tacoma: Suspension Bridges and the Quest for Aerodynamic Stability''. ASCE Publications. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Structural Failure
Solid mechanics
Materials science
Building engineering
Mechanical engineering
Building defects
Mechanical failure modes
Structural engineering
Engineering failures