Failures That Changed Perception of Our Designs-InG IABSE December 14
Failures That Changed Perception of Our Designs-InG IABSE December 14
Failures That Changed Perception of Our Designs-InG IABSE December 14
Dr. N. Subramanian earned his PhD from IIT, Madras in 1978 and has 40 years of professional
experience which includes teaching, research, and consultancy in India and abroad. Dr.
Subramanian has authored 25 books and more than 200 technical papers, published in international
and Indian journals and conferences. He has won the Tamil Nadu Scientist Award, the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Indian Concrete Institute (ICI) and the ACCE(I)-Nagadi best book
award for three of his books. He also served as the past vice-president of ICI and ACCE(I).
Summary
With the dwindling natural resources, it is
very important for engineers to avoid failures
of any nature and build structures which are
safe, stable, economic, aesthetic, durable, and
environment friendly. However, building and
other structural failures are occurring at regular
intervals in India. These failures, though well
reported in newspapers, the reasons for these
collapses are not well documented, even though
some committees are appointed in some cases
to study the failures. If the causes of failures are
well publicized, designers and builders can learn
from the mistakes done by others and will not
repeat them in their practice. Hence an attempt
is made in this paper to describe some important
failures that resulted in code clause changes or
in changes to professional practice. It is high time
that legislation is passed in India, similar to those
available in Western Countries, such that only
qualified and experienced engineers are allowed
to practice, so that failures are minimized.
Keywords: Bridge failures, Buckling, Building
Collapse,
Connections,
Cooling
towers,
Deflection, Foundation failures, Post-tensioned
Steel, Progressive collapse, Wind, Earthquakes,
Anchor bolt failures, Corrosion, Shear wall, Space
frame, Structural failures, Terrorist Attacks
1.0 Introduction
Building collapses are common in India, where
The Bridge and Structural Engineer
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Collapse
Distress
1977198219891977198219891981
1988
2000
1981
1988
2000
number number number number number number
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
Design
14 (23)
5 (14)
7 (3)
12 (40)
Detailing
6 (10)
5 (14)
2 (1)
1 (11)
1 (6)
5 (17)
1 (11)
6 (20)
2 (22)
11 (65)
Maintenance
1 (3)
4 (44)
1 (6)
Material
External
Others
(NA)
Total
aOne
1(2)
22 (11)
1(2)
3 (1)
2 (7)
4 (13)
1(6)
4(11)
61 (29)
1 (11)
3 (18)
60
(100)
37
(100)
207
(100)
30
(100)
9 (100)
17
(100)
case unknown
Foundation Failures
Foundations are important to any structure
as the entire load acting on the structure
is transmitted to the soil below through the
foundation only. Due to the complex nature of
soils and their behaviour, a hybrid approach is
usually adopted in foundation design in which
soil bearing pressures are checked based on
the working stress method and members of the
foundation are designed using the limit states
method (Subramanian, 2013). Foundation
failures are difficult to rectify and may endanger
the entire building. Hence it is important to
design them conservatively. If the footing is not
of the required thickness, there is a danger of the
column piercing through the foundation. Several
failures (both partial and total) in the past have
demonstrated the importance of foundation
failures, especially in poor soils. We will just look
at two fascinating foundation failures here.
Failure of Columns
Next to foundations, the most important elements
of any structure are its columns, as the failure of
a column may result in a catastrophic failure of
the whole structure. Thus, the designer should
carefully design and detail columns and their
footings.
3.1 Savar building collapse
On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story
commercial building, collapsed in Savar, a subdistrict in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital
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D:
Splice
and
Inadequate splices
in
plastic
hinge
regions and weak
connectivity between
members.
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Setbacks
causing
concentration of damage
and collapse where stiffness
and strength changes. Can
also be caused by change
in material or seismic-forceresisting-system
Number 4 December 2014 27
Fig.6 Component and system-level seismic deficiencies found in pre-1980 concrete buildings (NIST GCR
10-917-7, 2010)
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Ag f c'
Ac f yt
(1)
Where
0.8 Pu
n h + 12
kn = 0.6 + 0.4 x
0.2
and k p =
nl 20
Ag f ck
Ag
h + 12
1.3 and x
With the following conditions: fyt 689 MPa,
1. 0
Ac
20
(1a)
f yt Ac
s = 0.44k p
(2)
Failure of Slabs
Since two-way slabs are three-dimensional
elements, they may redistribute the overloads and
hence failures in slabs are not frequent, provided
they are detailed properly. However, punching
failures in flat plates may be catastrophic and
may not give enough warning. Hence such flat
slabs should not be used in severe earthquake
zones. When used in moderate zones, flat slabs
should be checked for punching stresses and
detailed properly near the vicinity of columns
(Subramanian, 2013 & 2014).
4.1 Collapse of Skyline Plaza, Virginia, U.S.A.
Skyline Plaza apartment building in Bailey's
Crossroads, Virginia, U.S.A. is an example of a
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matdl.org/failurecases/Bridge_Collapse_Cases/
Quebec_Bridge). Additionally, member stresses
were not recalculated and checked when the
center span length was increased by 61 m
during the design phase, overstressing several
members. As the bridge was erected, ironworkers
noticed significant mid-point displacements in
some of the truss compression members, but this
was not reported to the designer. Additionally,
even though it was a major bridge design, no one
proof checked the original design (The project
suffered a second collapse in 1916, when a
casting in the lifting apparatus broke, causing the
center span to fall into the water, killing thirteen
workers).
With the collapse of New Yorks I-90 over the
Schoharie Creek Bridge in 1987 and the deaths
of 10 people, attention was turned towards
underwater inspections. This structure failed
due to scouring of the center pier. In 1988, the
FHWA issued a technical advisory guide, Scour
at Bridges. In October of that same year, the
NBIS was modified based upon suggestions
made in the 1987 Surface Transportation and
Uniform Relocation Assistance Act. The national
underwater inspection frequency interval was set
at a maximum of 60 months. Scour critical bridge
inspections were initiated.
Even with these guidelines several bridge
failures have occurred. Most are small bridges
that collapsed due to overloads and many might
not have caused great loss of life. A recent
exception however was the sudden collapse
on August 1, 2007 of the I-35W Bridge over the
Mississippi River in Minnesota killing 13 people
and injuring 145 (See Fig. 15). The findings by
the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board)
indicate under-designed gusset plates were a
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Welded
Beam-column
Inadequate
quality
construction; and
control
during
[5]
[8]
CUOCO,
D.,
PERAZA,
D.,
and
SCARANGELLO, T., "Investigation of
L'Ambiance Plaza Building Collapse."
Journal of Performance of Constructed
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pp. 211-231.
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Moment Connections, New Building
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