Kentucky Bourbon crashes 5

[Latexman]

I wonder if termites had anything to do with the failure?

Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.

 

[dik]

Do you have proof of that?

90 proof...

Dik

 

[SkipVought]

...any pudding?

...although there’s no proof that the proof is spirit strength, one might assay the proof if there is any in the partaking of the pudding.

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

 

[SwinnyGG]

Curious as to why these structures are not held to the same building code as any other structure that requires human occupancy...

Because they don't require occupancy. No one lives or works permanently in them- so they are classified differently.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Besides, to what extent do you think the whisky industry influences the setting of building codes in Kentucky?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Brad805]

I think you will need to look at the date that was built and what if any codes applied. This was a problem that was known of. Nobody will admit that, but I bet this building has creaked and groaned for decades. I would think a layperson could have walked thru that and came out asking questions about safety. That was a $10million+ problem to fix today, and now provided they have sufficient coverage they might be covered by insurance. The whiskey stored might not be covered for its worth, so who knows how this works out in the end. Its great nobody was injured.

 

[dhengr]

For many years, agricultural bldgs. and industrial bldgs., on their own properties were pretty much exempted from the bldg. codes in many locales. It was assumed that they did their own engineering for themselves and cared about their own assets, few people (the public) were involved, they cared enough not to endanger their own operations, they were self- responsible and self-insured, etc. As long as the last barn, warehouse, bldg. was still standing and performing o.k., they did the next one the same way, the old ‘has withstood the test of time’ thing. It’s probably actually a fairly stable storage system as long as every barrel or row or level is placed properly, and as long as the plank dividers are placed properly, witness the few failures they have had, or they would have change their ways. But, if any of the above is not done properly, or something happens to touch it laterally, with a feather, you can get what we see here. Let today’s code writers (LRFD, IBC and all) get their hands on this and you probably couldn’t get a barrel into place through all the bracing and connections.

I’ll bet the whole thing was perpetrated by the downstream folks, who hoped for significantly more spillage than occurred into the adjacent stream. They were planning on selling bourbon-n-water fresh out of the creek at their summer activities this year.

 

[JohnRBaker]

With all the rain that has been experienced in that part of the country this spring, that could still have been a factor in this.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Brad805]

I have always struggled with the past performance argument during reviews. There was a arena roof collapse in our area and during the review an underlying defect was found. I always think what if I had reviewed that a month or so before the collapse. Would I have found it? I am not so sure because that defect was only uncovered after vast amounts of the roof were removed and it became visible.

 

[TenPenny]

Hasn't anyone noticed that this happened AFTER the EU threatened new tariffs on bourbon?

I hope the insurance investigators check this closely, could have been an inside job, LOL.

 

[Spartan5]

Sounds like a case for... Johnny Dollar.

 

[dgallup]

Bugs?

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[LittleInch]

https://www.abc57.com/news/9-000-barrels-of-bourbon-fall-in-kentucky-distillery-building-collapse

This report says it occurred whilst "having a wall repaired".....

https://www.whisky.com/whisky-database/distilleries/details/barton.html

If you click on the video then either wait or go to 2.22 you can see the inside of these things.

I like the pendulum where they load the warehouse in different locations to stop it falling down.... The text does sy these warehouses are particularly tall.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[Sawbux]

I'll take mine shaken, not stirred!

 

[JedClampett]

https://makeagif.com/i/MYX75d

 

[BridgeSmith]

"This report says it occurred whilst "having a wall repaired"..."

It's speculation to assume that the repair work was responsible, but it's a good speculation, as removing even a single board can compromise shear diaphragm capacity. If it was "on the edge", it wouldn't take much.

 

[racookpe1978]

Update, Wednesday 4 July 2018.

The REST of the building has collapsed. All walls and supports are down now.

The story claimed the distillery tried to recover the barrels, but has very few removed. That surprises me: I would have figured an simple roll-away-and pickup-by-forklift would salvage many hundred barrels. I recognize that rolling/recovering/moving the barrels down low might loosen the pile and allow those further up to themselves move or roll. But you'd only have to work gradually.

 

[msquared48]

Obviously never played "Pic-Up Stix".

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[JG2828]

 

[RickyTickyTavi]

wow. Those pictures.

Commenting on the building code issues, wouldnt most engineers classify these structures as Risk Category I structures if they were built today.


Looking at the pictures though, it appears to be a wood frame structure. lets do some napkin calcs. A standard barrel is around 60 gallons I think... so ballpark weight of each barrel is 512 lbs + self weight so... lets call it 550 even. Looks like the barrels are stacked 20 high. I cant tell their column spacing. It kind of looks like in the short side they have a column every barrel, but on the long side, it seems like perhaps its every 4 or 5 barrels. Just looking at the potential column loads with really rough trib areas, it looks like an axial loads in the range of 30-40 kips. Dont think I've ever done that with wood.


Sidebar: read the CBS article after I wrote this, the barrels weight 550 lbs each, huzzah! my guess work was right!