Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans collapses... 119

[thebard3]

...the very first thing I would do would be to bring the project to a colleague who owns a much larger firm that routinely handles projects this size...

That sounds like a way to make less money.
I'm being purposefully impertinent, but that is paramount to some organizations, regardless.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[charliealphabravo]

That sounds like a way to make less money.

Also being obtuse, but the amount of money you make is important from a professional standpoint for various reasons.

Not shooting the idea down per se, but I'm having trouble imagining how it would work to have the SER in responsible charge, working under and being paid by, a delegated or junior engineer who holds the contract. Also I'd think the PLI carrier would want to be on board with having the compensation and liability potentially being unbalanced. IDK, maybe this sort of thing happens all the time.

 

[bigengineer]

I think my point must not have been clear, which was: practice within your realm of experience. Just looking at the upper floors of the permit plans, they don't make any sense. Which others have pointed out, and I agree, they were stamped and sealed. There are few clear collector lines to the braced frames. Deck span is excessive. Beam sizes are too small. Cantilevered deck detail is terrible.

I won't address the other comments as it will just hijack the post, which wasn't my intent.

 

[charliealphabravo]

No sir, you were clear. That's why I said I was being obtuse.

 

[thebard3]

bigengineer--
Likewise.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[moon161]

The Honduran worker who reported unsafe conditions at the site is being held by ICE and will be deported.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/22/new-orleans-hotel-collapse-deported-honduras

The timing is a mere coincidence, I'm sure.

 

[Boris_Kuznetsov]

On October 12 the Hard Rock hotel collapsed in several hours after the Builder installed heavy swimming pool on 9th floor of the building.

In standard practice beams and floors are designed for bending moments and columns for compression forces. In reality beams and floors have also additional axial forces and columns have also additional bending moments. Usually the additional forces are very small and can be neglected but not always. For example, if building have big concentrated irregularly located loads, the additional forces could be big and must be taken in consideration by Designer.

The swimming pool is a heavy concentrated load, therefore, the Designer should not neglect additional forces: (compression forces in concrete and steel beams in 9th floor and bending moments in the columns of 8th floor). This neglect could lead to loss of stability of some columns of 8th floor and partial building collapse as it happened in Hard Rock hotel. Theoretically only one part of the building should collapse, the one which is closer to the end of the building from the swimming pool and located above 7th floor. This exactly coincides with the type of partial collapse of Hard Rock hotel.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I mentioned the pool a month and a half ago... but let's be fair, it was just the basin being installed, not like they were filling it. I doubt it had any major impact.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[charliealphabravo]

I'm with 3DDave on this one. If the underdesign/underbuild is as bad as it seems, then the actual trigger event is not that important (or knowable) and there is no point putting it on the conscience of some poor sub or laborer. Was it the pool, was it the bins full of debris, was it the removal of the key log post shore, was it a crane operator who jostled something, was it that wonky trash chute, did a butterfly flap its wings in the Amazon? All rhetorical questions it seems.

 

[bones206]

Even something as seemingly unrelated as immigration policy could have been a contributing factor. If the workers who raised safety concerns lived in fear of being deported, they were likely reluctant to push the issue. Clearly that fear would be justified since the worker "suddenly" got deported after living in the country for 18 years. Employers use immigration status against workers every day in the US and in many other countries.

Maybe if the workers had felt more empowered to push back, lives could have been spared. I'm not advocating one side or the other or trying to stir up an immigration policy debate, but if we are all being real then we should acknowledge it as a potential contributing factor in this case. It may not have affected the structural factor of safety, but it may have affected the workplace safety culture.

 

[3DDave]

Immigration concerns isn't much different than unionization protection, though the underlying design issues are the primary worry. Leaving a collapsing structure ahead of the failure isn't nearly as good as having a structure that won't fail. There was still the failure off the FIU bridge and no one was worried about being deported.

 

[DM61850]

That is pretty god damn ethical of that immigrant working even if it didn't save anyone. You can bet he stayed up at night weighing his staying in this country with if he could live with himself if someone got injured or killed. I don't know how many would have made the same decision. Too bad he still got badly hurt.

 

[bones206]

Link to the Washington Post article about the worker who was arrested. Contains some additional details about the structural conditions that he noticed and reported.

 

[SFCharlie]

On wwltv(local NOLA station)youtube channel:
a different kind and size of metal decking than what the city’s permitting office had approved

SF Charlie
Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

 

[JAE]

SFCharlie - those two guys talking appear to be measured, mature individuals who just so happen to totally not understand structural engineering.

 

[NOLAscience]

SFCharlie - those two guys talking appear to be measured, mature individuals who just so happen to totally not understand structural engineering.

And who is this "Mike Lincoln" that they seem to be relying on? Is he a professional engineer in Louisiana? All they say in the video is that he is with the "Capital chapter" of the ACI (American Concrete Institute).

 

[3DDave]

Journalists get desperate as a story ages and start turning over every stone they can, regardless of the applicability of that stone and often without listening to what's under the stone because they have some eyes and ears to grab and just want a catchy story.

Usually it's not fake news as much as ignorant and sensationalist news.

EDIT - Looks like they found a decent rock to look under. The discrepancies in the article of the next post are horrifying.

 

[Spartan5]

There is a companion (or parent) print article on the NOLA website here:
Hard Rock hotel collapse: Metal decking changed for concrete floors, city never approved

And Michael Lenkin's bio from a recent presentation at George Washington University is available here:

https://www.cee.seas.gwu.edu/sites/...17 Seminar-Mike Lenkin Miller And Long v2.pdf

 

[Boris_Kuznetsov]

Hard Rock hotel collapsed due to incorrect design. The presence of heavy swimming pool makes the standard frame design not applicable because the 9th floor of the building became movable in horizontal direction. All columns of 8th and 9th floors designed incorrectly. The hotel collapsed due to insufficient strength of the concrete deck supporting the swimming pool and the columns of 8th and 9th floors.
Boris Kuznetsov Ph.D.,P.E.,
Ret. structural engineer.

 

[hokie66]

Boris,
That is a very narrow view of what happened to this structure. You should reserve your opinions until more is known.