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Avalanche Burys Hotel in Italy

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The last that I saw they had at least 10 survivors out.
Man do they have a story.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
 
Plus another four.
 
And how is this an engineering disaster? I guess they could have used an avalanche gun sooner to keep so much snow from collecting.
 
Just a matter of thinking how the design could be improved... or maybe designed it in a fashion to better resist avalanches, or having a 'hardened' envelope, or _____ (fill in the blank).

Dik
 
Not bloody likely...

It can be done, but the cost would be outrageous. To design a ski chalet to withstand the impact of an avalanche would seem require lots of concrete/steel.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
IR:
Agreed, the response was to cranky... the original thread has an engineering component and belongs in this fora.

Almost like making house trailers tornado proof.

Dik
 
Sorry to cause confusion, but I felt there was no engineering design errors here. Granted it could have been designed better.

I still feel you might get better cost in snow build up prevention.
 
Building failures, in general, are always a point of interest to structural engineers. Even if the building was properly designed and performed as intended.

Where did the damage occur, was it ductile, did it give people time to evacuate or find a safe zone? All questions we can ask and learn from..... Though I don't expect to get much of that until we see some more post evacuation pictures of the failure.

Prevention of snow build up may be the best way to avoid this type of disaster in the future. But, that doesn't mean we can't still learn from it.
 
Prevention of snow buildup involves avalanche cannons, but that only works when you can get out there to do the measurements and the shots. They supposedly had days of heavy snow, followed by a series of earthquakes. I doubt that there would have been much to be done in that particular case; it's probable like a 100-yr anomaly and the only thing that might have saved the people would have been if the hotel was never there to begin with.

When the big one finally hits California, someone will say afterwards, "Gee, why couldn't we have prevented all that damage?" I think there are physical limits to what we humans can do in the face of the forces Nature can throw at us. We think we're the big cheeses, but we're really no more than ants crawling on the face of the Earth.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Seems they might have been better served by having some sort of wedge shape to split the avalanche around the structure, negating the need to resist the entire perpendicular avalanche force. That would also help in the case of failed mitigation for whatever reason, say, long heavy storms.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
JoshPlum said:
Building failures, in general, are always a point of interest to structural engineers. Even if the building was properly designed and performed as intended.
Click to expand...

Buildings designs aren't my thing and I wouldn't know an avalanche resistant ski chalet from one that never stood a chance, but I always find the "everything worked as intended" failures much more interesting than those where the failure mechanism is obvious as soon as the failure occurs. Something about having to dig deep in to the design criteria to figure out where it went wrong always, in the end, results in a much more satisfying investigation. Having simply to say that the design should have been followed, or this simple construction precaution should have been followed and all would have been well is much more just a slap of the forehead than a real event investigation.

It is my understanding that there's a power line from a hydro plant to Juneau Alaska that traverses an avalanche prone slope where one steel mono-pole is accompanied by multiple stub poles to form a prow around the main pole so that any avalanche is disrupted and diverted prior to taking out the pole that actually holds the conductors.
 
IR:
I would suggest the logical expansion of your statements:
> Engineering (Failures & Disasters)
would be Engineering Failures AND Engineering Disasters
and
> (Engineering Failures) & Disasters
would be Engineering Failures AND Disasters

The event clearly falls under Engineering Failures AND, if so then falls under Engineering Disasters. Your first statement is TRUE.

and regarding the second statement,
The event clearly falls under Engineering Failures AND Disasters
and the second statement is TRUE.

Your thesis might be considered as a trivial solution in some circles, but, I digress off topic.

It's been a slow boring day...

Dik
 
Except I could easily see zero engineering going into a ski lodge. Some carpenter cutting this and that until there was a building. Possibly no written plans ever.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
Someone had to at least verify that snow loads on the roof were being handled.

A wedge presupposes a known direction for an avalanche, but most places I've seen, there's multiple ridges, so multiple directions.

Esthetics-wise, a 10 or 20 ft tall wedge in the middle of the ski resort is going to be ugly.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
A wedge shape would be as problematic as a round shape, in that the contents will never seem to fit right.

Although a round shape might be a better design.
 
IRstuff,

Something like this, but with snow?


URL]
 
Sure!

But that's at the top of its local terrain, as opposed to being at the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills laden with snow ;-) And, it looks like it would be double-black diamond to ski out of there when surrounded by snow...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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