17 Story Building in Taiwan Collapses post 6.4 magnitude earthquake 1

[EZBuilding]

Both links include some harrrowing pictures

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/asia/taiwan-earthquake/index.html
[/url]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35508475[/url]

 

[allgoodnamestaken]

No, but caution should be urged before judging based on reporting of major news organizations who have neither the knowledge nor interest in getting a story right rather than making a story controversial.

 

[Trenno]

Well one side has mesh within a 50mm thickness but the other side has no reinforcement at all!

Nice and ductile.

 

[BrianPetersen]

Does anyone think those cans, and their spacing and location, were specified on the engineering drawings for that structure??

 

[hokie66]

What engineering drawings?

 

[bimr]

The use of voids is common in concrete deck slabs. Whether it is a void or the void is filled with a tin can, what is the difference.

Don't believe the failure of a deck slab resulted in the building rotating over. A failure of a floor slab would have caused the floor to drop vertically.

Most likely there was a failure associated with the vertical columns.

"The structural system of the building was pretty poor," said Sheen Mau-song, a professor of civil engineering and member of the Taiwan Civil Engineering Association who is part of the government's team investigating the collapse.

"There were very few pillars on the first floor, the pillars were quite scattered about, and the materials, from the weakest side, were destroyed."

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I think it matters if those cans were placed in there solely to save on concrete for monetary reasons, not sound engineering practice (i.e., cheap/greedy contractor). Looking at the pic above, I don't see much webbing between the cans... that may be fine on a vertical, non-load supporting wall, but I would hope that's not a load-supporting deck slab.

Don't know, civil isn't my bag...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[bimr]

"It is preposterous" to think that cooking oil cans would be used in a pillar for support purposes, Tai said.

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201602070017.aspx

This image shows the columns on the first floor after the building rotated clockwise:

Weiguan Jinlong apartment Building:

 

[VEBill]

Perhaps the cans were not the direct cause of the building collapse.

But perhaps they are a clue about how shoddy the construction was.

 

[boo1]

Looks like a short seven stories.
Does the reinforcement look small?
Suspect substandard construction, weak concrete, improper reinforcement and stirrup

 

[bimr]

Regarding "Looks like a short seven stories"?

The building is on its side.

"If only one building fails catastrophically and everything else is left standing with only cosmetic damage, one can only assume that the structure had a fundamental flaw in its design, or that its construction was very shoddy."

http://seismo.berkeley.edu/blog/seismoblog.php/2016/02/07/suspicious-collapse-of-twin-towers

These are the pictures of the building prior to the earthquake from google earth.

Reliefweb Link

 

[itsmoked]

Whoa, that's a seismically complex building to model and for that matter to build too.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[EZBuilding]

I don't often deal in seismic, however, this looks like a case of "Soft First Story" behavior?

The picture provided by bimr at 02:10 looks like the stories above are displacing in a separate direction from the first...

 

[itsmoked]

Yes the first floor has that stilty look to it.



Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[bimr]

This building fell like a tree cut with an axe. Either most of the first floor columns collapsed or ground liquefied. There was a massive failure of some sort, not just a few columns.

 

[bimr]

Soil liquefaction has been identified as a problem in previous earthquakes. The government said it will soon make public a list of areas potentially vulnerable to soil liquefaction in a first step to address the problem that may have contributed to the collapse or subsidence of several buildings in the Feb. 6 earthquake.

http://international.thenewslens.com/post/283869/

http:

http://peer.berkeley.edu/pdf/reconn...f//focustaiwan.tw/news/aeco/201602150029.aspx