Topic summary
Structural failure
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Structural integrity and failure.
Structural failure refers to the loss of structural integrity, or the loss of load-carrying structural capacity in either a structural component or the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when a material is stressed beyond its strength limit, causing fracture or excessive deformations; one limit state 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.