Forum
Structural Failure of Building’s Walkway: Case Study
Soliman Khudeira, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
Project Director, Chicago Dept. of Transportation, 30 N. LaSalle St., Suite
400, Chicago, IL 60602. E-mail: skhudeira@cityofchicago.org
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)SC.1943-5576.0000098
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Pakistan Inst Engr & App.Scien on 04/01/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Introduction
Thirty years ago, on July 17, 1981, two walkways in the Hyatt
Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed, killing 114
people and injuring 216, many of whom were permanently dis-
abled. Two steel walkways were stacked on top of each other
and suspended from the ceiling above. The top walkway fell on
the bottom walkway, and the two fell onto the floor of the crowded
atrium below. The collapse was the worst structural failure in the
history of the United States. This paper will briefly discuss the
causes of this collapse, design and construction issues, lessons
learned, and ethical and legal issues associated with this collapse.
As-Designed Walkway Configuration
The Hyatt Regency Hotel was a 40-story building with an atrium.
Three walkways were suspended from the atrium’s ceiling using
32-mm (1.25 in.) diameter tension rods (Fig. 1). The 2nd-floor
walkway, directly below the 4th-floor walkway, was suspended
from the steel beams of the 4th-floor walkway, whereas the 3rd
and 4th-floor walkways hung from the atrium’s ceiling. The tension
rods that supported the 2nd- and 4th-floor walkways were designed
Fig. 1. Atrium of Hyatt Regency Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri
90 / PRACTICE PERIODICAL ON STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION © ASCE / AUGUST 2011
Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 2011.16:90-94.
to be continuous rods from the 2nd floor to the atrium ceiling.
The architect wanted the walkways to look as light and airy as
possible, suspended by thin rods hanging down from the atrium’s
steel framing above.
After the collapse, investigators determined that this design was
capable of supporting only 60% of the minimum load required by
Kansas City building code (Kaminetzky 1991).
Revisions during Construction That Caused the
Collapse
The manufacturer of the tension rods requested that the 2nd- and
4th-floor rod be changed from one continuous rod into two separate
rods (Figs. 2 and 3). This request was made because of the diffi-
culty in making the threads at the 4th floor. Also, those threads
would probably have been damaged as the structure of the 4th-floor
walkway was hoisted into position. This design change, by itself, is
the one that caused the collapse.
In the original design, the beams of the 4th-floor walkway had to
support only the weight of the 4th-floor walkway itself (load P2 in
Fig. 2). The weight of the 2nd-floor walkway (load P1 in Fig. 2)
was completely supported by the rods. In the revised design (Fig. 3),
the 4th-floor beams were required to support the 4th-floor load
(load P2 ) and the 2nd-floor load (load P1 ). In the original design
(Fig. 2), the nut directly below the 4th floor would have resis-
ted only load P1 , whereas in the revised design, it is resisting
P1 þ P2 (Figs. 2 and 3).
Unfortunately, the engineer of record (EOR) approved the
revised design without performing any calculations to check the
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Pakistan Inst Engr & App.Scien on 04/01/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Fig. 2. As-designed walkways showing one continuous tension rod

Fig. 3. As-built walkways showing two tension rods

capacity of the members. Performing the calculations and sketching
the new configuration would have certainly shown the EOR the
new load path that doubled the load on the nut and ultimately
caused the failure.
As-Designed and As-Built Box Beams
The transverse beams that support the walkway were made of two
steel channels welded together toe-to-toe (Fig. 4) to form a box
beam. Welding the channels results in weak welds attributable
to lack of fusion; this allowed the nut to pull through the channel/
box beam assembly, initiating the collapse. Additionally, the speci-
fied weld was a square flush weld, whereas the as-built weld had
much less surface with minimum fusion. However, by itself, this
was not the cause of the collapse (Levy and Salvatori 1987).
The design was seriously flawed, since it placed the rod and the
nut directly in a welded joint between two facing C-channels,
which is weakest structural point in the box beams. In this failure,
the box beams split at the weld, and the nut supporting them slipped
through.

PRACTICE PERIODICAL ON STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION © ASCE / AUGUST 2011 / 91

Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 2011.16:90-94.

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Pakistan Inst Engr & App.Scien on 04/01/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Fig. 4. As-designed and as-built weld for the steel channel sections

General Causes of Structural Collapse information on failures and their causes, to provide guidelines
for conducting failure investigations, and to provide guidelines
The various causes of any structural collapse include one or more of for ethical conduct in forensic engineering (ASCE 2011).
the following:
• Design errors,
• Construction errors, Alternative Connection Details
• Lack of inspection,
• Poor workmanship, The major weakness in the connection had been the use of thin-web
• Poor materials, channels and the lack of stiffening on both the channel flanges
• Lack of design details, and the webs at the point of attachment (Ross 1984). Neither
• Lack of shop drawing review, the original nor the as-built rod-to-box beam connection satisfied
• Unpredictable mode of failure, the Kansas City building code. Figs. 5–7 show suggested stronger
• Unexpected natural phenomena, connection details, all of which would have made the connection
• Varying soil conditions, and much stronger, making it much more difficult for the nut to pull
• Poor maintenance. through. The first alternative connection is back-to-back channels
The causes of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse was attrib- using web stiffeners, as required by the design (Fig. 5).
uted to: The second alternative connection is back-to-back channels
1. Design errors—this includes designing a walkway structure using a bearing plate below the channels. The nut will then bear
that does not meet the local code requirement, on the bearing plate, rather than on the toe of the channel, as speci-
2. Construction errors—this include verbal communications fied in the original design (Fig. 6).
between the fabricator and the EOR, The third alternative would be to use tube steel in lieu of
3. Lack of design details, channels (Fig. 7). This detail would have eliminated the need
4. Lack of shop drawing review—verbal approval of the revised for welding the two channels. Also, the nut will not bear on the
design was done without preparing revised shop drawings to be toe of the channels.
checked and approved by the EOR, and
5. Poor workmanship—the weld connecting the two channels
was not done as specified in the design. However, this by itself
is not the main cause of the failure.

After the Collapse of the Walkways

The Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and

Land Surveyors convicted the engineer of record and the project
engineer of gross negligence, misconduct, and unprofessional con-
duct in the practice of engineering. Both of their Missouri profes-
sional engineering licenses were revoked. The American Society of
Civil Engineers revoked their membership. Civil lawsuits were
filed by the victims and their families, and hundreds of millions
of dollars in damages have been awarded (Kaminetzky 1991).
In response to the Hyatt walkway collapse and other collapses,
in July 1985 ASCE established a Technical Council on Forensic
Engineering (TCFE). The purpose of the TCFE is to develop
Fig. 5. Back-to-back channels
practices to reduce the number of such failures, to disseminate

92 / PRACTICE PERIODICAL ON STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION © ASCE / AUGUST 2011

Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 2011.16:90-94.


Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Pakistan Inst Engr & App.Scien on 04/01/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 6. Toe-to-toe channels with bearing plate
Fig. 7. Using tube steel in lieu of channels
Lessons Learned from the Collapse
The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse highlighted the following
issues:
1. A basic design question is posed because of the high number
of fatalities. Should the factor of safety utilized by the design
professional be proportional to the consequences of a possible
collapse? The factor of safety used in the design of the Hyatt
walkway should have been much more than the 1.5 safety fac-
tor that was actually used to check the bearing and bending of
the connection.
2. This collapse highlighted the need to design buildings and
building components that contain redundancy. This failure
may not have resulted in the complete collapse of the walk-
ways if they were designed to be redundant.
3. There was a lack of a formal process with established proce-
dures. An established procedure for changes/substitutions/
design revisions during construction could have prevented this
type of collapse.
4. It is important that the contract documents delineate responsi-
bility and accountability for design work required for the
project.
PRACTICE PERIODICAL ON STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION © ASCE / AUGUST 2011 / 93
Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 2011.16:90-94.
Table 1. Minimum Live Loads Specified by the Code
Minimum uniformly distributed live loads, Lo, and minimum
concentrated live loads
Uniform
[psf Concentrated
Occupancy or use (kN=m2 )] [lb (kN)]
Corridors 100 (4.79) —
Dance halls and ballrooms 100 (4.79) —
Hotels and multifamily houses
Private rooms and corridors serving them 40 (1.92) —
Public rooms and corridors serving them 100 (4.79) —
Walkways and elevated platforms (other 60 (2.87) —
than exit-ways)
5. There is a need to establish the engineer of record's responsi-
bility for the structural integrity of the entire project, including
the shop details.
6. The engineer of record should design and detail all nonstan-
dard connections.
7. All designs, especially those with new concepts, should be
thoroughly checked. Designs should be reviewed by third-
party structural peer reviewers.
8. All of modifications to the design during construction should
require written approval from the engineer of record.
9. Structural engineers should communicate with the fabricator
during the design to make sure that the design is constructible.
This will minimize changes during the construction.
10. In this collapse, the design engineer approved the revision
requested by the fabricator without performing any calcula-
tions or sketches. A simple calculation would have shown
the doubling of the load on the 4th-floor beams.
11. The fabricator, after the accident, claimed that his company
telephoned the engineering firm and requested approval of
the change from one to two rods. The engineer of record, how-
ever, denied ever receiving such a call from the fabricator. This
highlights the need for nonverbal communication and thorough
documentation during construction.
12. The design of the Hyatt walkway did not meet the minimum
load require by the Kansas City building code. This highlights
the obvious need to always use the required building codes and
to check the design against all that are applicable in the code.
As an example, the current minimum design for live loads for
this type of walkway structure (ASCE 2005) are given in
Table 1.
From Table 1, the minimum design live load for the Hyatt
walkways is 4:79 kN=m2 (100 psf), and it is certainly not
2:87 kN=m2 (60 psf).
Engineering Ethics Related to the Collapse
During the trial, the detailer, architect, fabricator, and technician all
testified that during construction they had contacted the project
engineer regarding the structural integrity of the connection detail.
Each time, he assured them that the connection was sound, claim-
ing to have checked the detail when in reality he had never per-
formed any calculations for this design at all. Neglecting to check
the safety and load capacity of a crucial hanger, even once, shows
complete disregard for the public welfare. Currently, the Hyatt
tragedy remains a classic model for the study of engineering ethics
and proper communication among all those who are involved in a
project.
 Failure Case Studies in Civil Engineering
Curriculum and Practice
Major high-profile structural collapses, including the Hyatt walk-
way collapse, have led to changes in civil engineering education,
industry standards, design codes, and overall methods of practice
(Parfitt and Parfitt 2007). Case studies of failures in buildings and
other structures reveal what is often a complex interaction of tech-
nical issues, miscommunication, procedural errors, and missed op-
portunities to prevent the failure. The case of the Hyatt walkway
collapse is a good example of failure, providing a textbook example
for learning what not to do. Procedural errors, ethical lapses, and
many missed opportunities for catching the problem prior to the
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Pakistan Inst Engr & App.Scien on 04/01/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
collapse have made the Hyatt walkway failure one of the most valu-
able and frequently studied case histories in structural and construc-
tion engineering education.
In the years following the collapse of the walkways, many indi-
viduals acknowledged that problems existed with the meaning of
“shop drawing review” and the overall responsibility of the Engi-
neer of Record for connection design (Parfitt and Parfitt 2007).
Summary
The Hyatt Regency collapse was a monumentally tragic event.
The forensic investigation into the cause has provided architects,
engineers, general contractors, fabricators, and subcontractors
94 / PRACTICE PERIODICAL ON STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION © ASCE / AUGUST 2011
Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 2011.16:90-94.
the opportunity to develop processes to learn from the events at
the Hyatt and to work proactively to prevent the recurrence of
such a tragedy.
Design engineers also learned not to approve any modification
submitted during construction without thorough calculations,
sketches, and documentation. Additionally, verbal communication
is not an acceptable practice, and any change (minor or major) must
be documented and communicated to all those who are involved in
the construction. This has been made much easier by using today’s
computer technology and communication tools.
References
ASCE. (2005). “Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.”
ASCE/SEI 7-05, Reston, VA.
ASCE. (2011). “American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE Technical
Council on Forensic Engineering.” Reston, VA, 〈http://www.asce
.org/Content.aspx?id=2147488650〉.
Kaminetzky, D. (1991). Design and construction failures, McGraw-Hill,
New York.
Levy, M., and Salvatori, M. (1987). Why buildings fall down, Morton &
Company, New York.
Parfitt, M., and Parfitt, E. (2007). “Failures education: The key to better
engineering design.” Structure, January, 10–12.
Ross, S. (1984). Construction disasters, McGraw-Hill, New York.