IDK about the municipal processes there but here (Australia) there is always a cry to preserve interesting old stuff as-is but much suspicion of any ideas that would give them a new commercial lease of life. So they get neglected and something like this happens...
The difference in properties is even more significant because your average doofus with a BBQ is accustomed to fuel gas being somewhat forgiving of his doofusness. Reticulating hydrogen, as is dreamed about in some circles, will require higher pressures, (thus finding all the leaks in the...
Russia is unfinished business. Reagan tipping the sovs over the edge should have been enough, but the mess left, allowing the nomenklatura (the corruption and the rich old families mentioned above) to dominate the emerging economy was a tragic mistake. But the game is the same: the structure is...
Seems to me there is a conundrum around thorough inspection: hard to do without stripping the finish, so expensive and disruptive. Loss of experience or information over time (EOR gone, builder gone, plans lost or obselete due to alterations etc), and the inspection may cause new damage as we...
If the cable went over a roller or sheave of some kind on the towers then some movement is anticipated or at least allowed for. Repeated cable movement over sheaves prompts a ton-miles calculation and a replacement schedule; if not this is an oversight. The flexing creates fatigue as well as...
Given the Champlain Towers owners already had an inspection and an engineers report that used words like exponential deterioration I think the problem is less the inspection schedule and more the need for enforcement and for reserved funds to take action. The inspection did not condemn the...
I agree. I'm sure they know their business but it looks utterly wrong to me too. Seems to me they have corrected a far-away thing using an up-close distortion scale. The distance ratios that create the spherical distortion are all wrong for that to work. It is saying that the delta of the...
Thanks Maud. Great job as always. Did you see any evidence that NIST has the original of the collapse video from the adjacent building or any other so-far unpublished video? I saw as-builts mentioned. They were missing too from materials available to us the great unwashed.
From the NIST article:
"When a particular theory gains traction or popularity in the public, we may directly address it in our final report so that the public will understand why we did or did not believe that theory to be consistent with the available facts and evidence."
I'll be keeping an eye...
The critical structural purpose of the towers on the Bolte Bridge is to support the vast ego of the State Premier who commissioned it. Some other civic architecture of his time in office will give you the idea...
I believe the need such as it is, is to boost the value of an upmarket housing development the university is undertaking on the Sweetwater side of the road. A nice short traffic-free and weatherproof stroll from home to campus, etc, with a flagship structure to put on the brochures. Or at least...
I'm comparing two scenarios. The first has the pool deck columns no longer carrying full load due to punching shear, the resulting catenary (plus some thermal shrinkage overnights) is being held by the building columns and the wall connection, one of of which fails and the reaction breaks the...
And speaking of timelines, not sure Josh at BI has it exactly straight in his video re the wall connections. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the timeline establishes that any of the pool-adjacent area collapse could have been visible to folks driving into the garage pre- the...
In the real world of limited budgets and competing interests that is my concern too. When compaction becomes lateral displacement, if that hasn't started already, I think in practical terms it's game over. Many startling things can be achieved by clever folks with a bottomless budget but a...
The purpose of this structure is to be an aspirational, high life-style, high profile, high capital growth flagship asset that (almost incidentally) people can live in. I have boundless faith that enough money and enough engineering applied in enough time could make safe the physical structure...
I can imagine a relatively junior employee staffing the entry not wishing to get into an argument with a customer or their parents about their weight. As for not-checked harnesses...that will be hot water for everyone involved.
