Lect 3 Failure Types

Background
Forensic Engineering
Modes of Failures
I t is t h e confidence t h a t c a u s e s a c c i d e n t s a n d
worries which p r e v e n t s t h e m . Go o v e r y o ur s u m s
n o t o n c e or twice b u t a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n .
(James Gordon Aircraft Design engineer)
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Background
A civil engineer should be able to recognize and understand
concepts of engineering.
Ability to perform these concepts,
?
Formulate possible causes of problems and formulate
workable alternative solution.
 Study the different failure hypothesis
 .?
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Failure Mechanism
Statics
 Typical example is Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
Dynamics
 The Tacoma Narrow Bridge collapse.
Explain all these mechanisms either through pictures or

videos

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Failure Mechanism (Cont’d)

 Steel structures
 Brittle fracture, (I-57 Farina Overpass (Illinois,
1977)
 Ductile fracture,
 Buckling (Quebec River Bridge, 1907),
 Fatigue (e.g. The Silver Bridge, 1967),
 Welding and connections (Liberty ship hull failure)
 Nut and bolts (e.g. Hyatt Regency walkway collapse)
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 Residual stresses
 Expansion joints (Pittsburgh convention center)

 Creep
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Failure Mechanism (Cont’d)

 Concrete structures
 Flexural failure
 Shear failure (Wilkins Air Force Depot, US)
 Punching shear failure (Sampoong superstore collapse)
 Temperature and shrinkage (Wilkins Air Force Depot)
 Creep (e.g. Boston’s Big Dig Tunnel collapse)
 Geotechnical Failure
 Others
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 A continuous load path must be there to transfer all loads

safely to the foundation,

 Importance of redundancy,
 Responsible use of computer technology,
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Reviewing Concepts
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Engineering Mechanics
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Free Body Diagram

 Importance of the FBD
 Take a case study of Hyatt regency Walkways collapse
 Different
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Structural
Analysis
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Load Paths
Continuous load paths to transfer all the loads to
foundations/ground.
Failure/collapse of L’Ambiance Plaza,
Connecticut US.
 In case of L’ambiance Plaza collapse:
o The lack of redundancy was
blamed to the collapse.
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Calculating Structural Deformations

 Permissible structural deformation,
 Excessive structural deformation
 Causing non-structural damage,
 A sign of warning,
 In case of Quebec River Bridge (Canada) collapse, the
deflection in some of the truss members was 2.25 in.
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Dynamic
Analysis
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Calculating Dynamic Analysis

Understanding of dynamic analysis,
The collapse of Tacoma Narrow Bridge blamed poor
understanding of aerodynamic behaviour of bridge deck.
All possible dynamic forces
 In case of Millennium Bridge (London), lateral
dynamic forces were considered in the initial design.
Considering dynamic forces of construction even concrete
carrying carts/buggies
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Use of Computer
Technology
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Responsible use of computer technology

Use of computer technology,
Current software agreements,
 Law favourable to software side,
o Disproportionate burden on engineers/designers,
 Ultimate responsibility lies on the designer,
 e.g. Company, Inc. v. Timberline Software Corp.,
o Software produced an error of $2,000,000 in
contractor’s bid.
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 Reliability of software
o Some software are purely theoretically

Make a habit of critical acceptance of software
results.
Several errors in results of FEA applications have been
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reported in literature.
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Reinforced Concrete
Design
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Strength Development of Concrete

Concrete strength under controlled conditions vs. the actual
one at the site.
In cold weather, the concrete strength at early stage
significantly reduced.
 In cold weather, the level of carelessness of construction
also increases.
Premature removal of formwork and temporary bracings.
 For example, in case of Willow Island Cooling Tower
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(US) collapse, the concrete was not strong enough to hold

formwork.
Improper/illegal use of concrete additives.
 Calcium Chloride is used as an accelerator
 However, sometimes its use is prohibited by designer.
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Strength Development of Concrete

 Illegal use of cement type.
 High-Alumina cement has high early strength,
 High resistance against sulphate attack.
o It was used in UK for the manufacturing of
prestressed members.
o Cement conversion process may loose its strength up
to 50%.
o Therefore, its use is prohibited for
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structural purposes.
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Dimensional Changes
 Insufficient length of rebars,
 Concrete members dimensions violating the code(s).
 Change in clear cover is bad practice
o In case of 2000 Commonwealth Ave collapse,
concrete cover for columns varied from ½ in. to 8 in.
 Top steel (negative steel) should be at right position
o In case of 2000 Commonwealth Ave collapse, the top
steel was below the middle depth of slab
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 Sampoong Department Store collapse (South Korea)

o Slab thickness reduced from 410 mm to 360 mm.

o Reduced size of columns was also major factor for the
punching shear failure.
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Dimensional Changes (Cont’d)

 Increase of dead loads during construction
 Increasing the thickness of plaster,
o By applying ¾ in. of plaster instead of ½ in. on 100
ft2 wall/floor gives an additional weight of 210 lbs.
 Increasing the floor topping.
o In case of Sampoong Department Store, floor topping
was more than doubled than designed.
o In case of excessive deflection of slab, it is bad
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practice to increase the topping to smoothen the

level.
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Reinforcing Steel Placement

Placement of rebars.
Insufficient or excessive clear covers.
Improper height of chairs used in concreting of slabs.
 Reduces the effective depth(s)
o Sampoong Department Store
collapse (South Korea)
The beam bottom reinforcement continuous through the
column increase ductility (Noticed during Pentagon attack
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in 2001).

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Development Length and Detailing

Sufficient development length must be
provided.
In case of not enough development length,
bars will pull out before yielding.
In case of Pittsburgh Midfield Terminal
(US) failure, the shorter embedded length
was cause of failure.
The hooks of longitudinal bars in columns
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are prohibited as they increase the lateral

buckling of columns.
 This was violated in case of
Zumurt Apartment Building (Turkey)
collapse.
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Shear Failure
Not enough shear strength
 Shear strength provided by
• Concrete,
• Stirrups
• Inclined rebars
In case of US Air Force Base (Ohio) warehouse collapse,
blame was given to inadequate shear reinforcement.
 Concrete cracked because of thermal expansion,
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o Concrete members have no shear capacity once

cracked.
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Punching Shear Failure

 The punching shear failure is a critically mechanism that
usually occurs in slabs (particularly the flat slabs) and the
footings.
 The force acting on the slab around a column exceeds its
resistance and the slab falls down around the column
 Look at the typical punching shear failure mechanism.
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 The punching shear failure at onecolumn can

cause a complete failure/collapse of the structure.
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Punching Shear Failure (Cont’d)

 The punching shear strength of a flat slab for
an interior column is given by (Imperial system),
 where d is effective depth and significantly reduced by the

bad workmanship.
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Punching Shear Failure (Cont’d)

 In most of the Punching Shear failure cases, slabs are stacked
vertically on top of each other.
 For example: The collapse of Harbour Cay Condominium
and Sampoong Department Store was mainly because of
Punching Shear failure.
 In one typical case of Harbour Cay Condominium:
o A slab thickness of 203 mm was used, whereas ACI
minimum was 280 mm.
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o The top bars were placed too low and effective depth
was decreased 160 mm to 135 mm.

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Temperature and Shrinkage

 Heat of hydration during concrete placement
 Mechanism to relieve stresses
 Stresses due to temperature and shrinkage
 Temperature and shrinkage reinforcement
 In case expansion joints fail/lock
 For example: Two structures at US Air Force warehouses
collapsed at their self weight
o Expansion joints locked
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o The shrinkage and resulting axial forces caused

the failure.
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Overstressed Concrete Columns

 In case, actual load exceeded the capacity of the structure,
 Observed in the collapse of New World Hotel, Singapore
o Significant deformation and cracking was observed in
one column,
o After one day, the cracks appeared in the nearby
columns.
 A differential settlement may also overstress some
columns,
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 Observed in the collapse of 27-story Space Building

in Medellin, Columbia.
o One column showed significant deflection (80 mm)
and after few months other adjacent column
evidenced signs of compression failure.
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Steel Structures
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Expansion Joins and Connection Details

Should understand how different types of connection or
expansion joints work,
 What will happen if connection locks
 Effect of temperature change,
o Two structures at US Air Force warehouses
collapsed at their self weight because of expansion
joint failure/locked.
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Riveting & Welding

 Difference between Riveting and Welding
 Pros and Cons of each,
 What will happen if riveting is replaced by Welding
 In case of Liberty Ship Hull failures, riveting was
replaced by welding and that leads towards failure.
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Fatigue
 In failure initiates from a local point (stress
concentration)
fatigue, and then propagates.
The cyclic loading (varying stress) causes the micro/atomic-
sized cracks to minute cracks and then transform to fracture
 The problem aggravated by the low temperatures.
 The Silver Bridge collapse (Dec 15, 1967)
 The Challenger Space Shuttle is blamed to the launching of
space shuttle at low temperature.
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o Engineer(s) objected to the launching

at low temperature.
 In 1953, Comet Aircraft crashes (e.g. near Calcutta)
 However, the actual cause was the combination of stress
concentration and fatigue.
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 The failure of Liberty Ship Hull (during WW II) is blamed to

stress concentration and fatigue.
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Aluminum metals
 S-N curves for steel and
Fatigue S-N Curves
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(Images are Courtesy of Google Images )

Fatigue Failure Examples
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Residual Stresses
The internal stresses existing in a free body that has no
external forces acting on it.
Different manufacturing methods/techniques may create
residual stresses.
 In late 1930s, the merchants ships (Liberty ships) were
built by using riveting technique
 During the WW II, technique was changed from
riveting to welding.
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 At that time, Welding was unproven technique,

 Welding could lead residual stresses.

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Expansion Joints
 Joints and connections are weak points in structures.
 Allow to relieve stresses due to change in ambient
temperature,
 In case expansion joints fail/lock
o For example:
o Two structures at US Air Force warehouses collapsed
at their self weight
o At Pittsburgh Convention Center, the ambient
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temperature was around -19C.

 A first-class engineering type connections should

be used.
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Geotechnical Engineering
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Earthwork, soil, and foundation problems

 Settlement-induced cracks
 Fill materials,
 Expansive soil,
 Soil shrinkage
 Lateral earth
pressure
 Soil bearing capacity
 Soil liquefaction
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Structural Integrity
during Construction
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Formwork and Temporary Bracing

Pressure to meet the deadlines:
 Common practice to removed the formwork as quickly as
possible.
 To pay the workers for 8 hours irrespective of the time
they spent.
 Extra precautions are required in extreme weathers as
degree of carelessness increased.
Should be responsibility of site engineer and Not the field
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crew.
A lesson learnt from previous mistakes that all formworks

should not be tied together.
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Formwork and Temporary Bracing

Proper design of formwork.
 DL and LL are not properly considered.
 Dynamic loading of carts/buggies carrying concrete
should be considered.
o Formwork design had been safe without
considering dynamic analysis but proved unsafe
otherwise.
In United States, improper temporary bracing cause 2,200
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fatalities and $2 billion in economic loss annually.


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Change in Use
of Structure
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Change in Use of Structure

Change in use of structure after it is designed or completed..
 May increase dead load or/and live load.
In case of Sampoong Department Store collapse (South
Korea), change in use of 5th floor increased the dead load by
35%.
Change in position of dynamic machinery (e.g. Air
conditioning unit) that was different in original design.
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Use of New
Material
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Careful Use of New Material

 All new materials should be carefully used.
 May increase dead load or/and live load.
 High-Alumina Cement:
 High early strength cement
 Resistance to sulphate attack
 However, its strength may reduce to half because of
Conversion process. (No guaranty that it will not
occure)
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 Therefore, its structural use is banned.

 Fiber-reinforced Polymer (FRP)

 Poor fire-resistance
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Lect 3 Failure Types

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Lect 3 Failure Types

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Background

Explain all these mechanisms either through pictures or

Failure Mechanism (Cont’d)

 Expansion joints (Pittsburgh convention center)

Failure Mechanism (Cont’d)

 A continuous load path must be there to transfer all loads

safely to the foundation,

Free Body Diagram

Calculating Structural Deformations

Calculating Dynamic Analysis

Responsible use of computer technology

o Some software are purely theoretically

Strength Development of Concrete

(US) collapse, the concrete was not strong enough to hold

Strength Development of Concrete

 Sampoong Department Store collapse (South Korea)

o Slab thickness reduced from 410 mm to 360 mm.

Dimensional Changes (Cont’d)

practice to increase the topping to smoothen the

Reinforcing Steel Placement

Development Length and Detailing

are prohibited as they increase the lateral

o Concrete members have no shear capacity once

Punching Shear Failure

 The punching shear failure at onecolumn can

Punching Shear Failure (Cont’d)

 where d is effective depth and significantly reduced by the

Punching Shear Failure (Cont’d)

was decreased 160 mm to 135 mm.

Temperature and Shrinkage

o The shrinkage and resulting axial forces caused

Overstressed Concrete Columns

 Observed in the collapse of 27-story Space Building

Expansion Joins and Connection Details

Riveting & Welding

o Engineer(s) objected to the launching

 The failure of Liberty Ship Hull (during WW II) is blamed to

(Images are Courtesy of Google Images )

 At that time, Welding was unproven technique,

 Welding could lead residual stresses.

temperature was around -19C.

 A first-class engineering type connections should

Earthwork, soil, and foundation problems

Formwork and Temporary Bracing

A lesson learnt from previous mistakes that all formworks

Formwork and Temporary Bracing

fatalities and $2 billion in economic loss annually.

Change in Use of Structure

Careful Use of New Material

 Therefore, its structural use is banned.

 Fiber-reinforced Polymer (FRP)

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