NIST doesn't write building codes or develop the relevant technical standards (i.e. concrete and steel codes). That's how I'm reading....
This collapse was so much more than just a failure of not having adequate building standards/requirements, which is the mission of NIST.
Mind you I don't read mission statements generally, but from my experience with NIST, they do collapse investigations, probably paired with laboratory work on the strength of various components, and generally with OSHA, at least this corner of NIST, if they assist in developing technical standards that are referenced in the building code, I'm unaware of that role. I believe they did make recommendations to change the building code after the WTC 1, 2, and 7 collapse, and some of those changes were made, but the changes I'm specifically aware of regard the number of stairs in larger occupancy buildings (four now, versus three previously), not something structural, egress lighting, maybe stair width, etc.
I'm not going to go along with the building standards or the code requirements being inadequate, considering the columns being over-reinforced per the code at the time, (and the slab depth being too thin, unless they actually ran calculations on the slab depth and proved it met serviceability back when). If you want, the
1963 ACI 318 code can be looked at here, this is a 1979 era building, but I think the 1963 code serves reasonably well. Section 913 addresses maximum and minimum reinforcing percentages for columns, and Table 909(b) has the limits for slab depth to omit deflection checks (admittedly there's nothing in there for two-way slabs, which I consider this to be, but I think that's a bit of a "fielder's choice" in that it could be designed as a two-way slab and function as a one-way slab or vice versa, I don't know when the two way slab thickness table showed up, but it's after 1963, and it's in my 1993 softcover copy).
Competence? Lack of Care? Ethical lapses? Conflict of interest inspecting one's own design? Conflict of interest being paid to inspect work by one party (contractor, I presume, or the city? Does anybody know?) and design the work by another party (the developer)?
I'm not blaming the code, not yet at least, and surely not exclusively. At least part of this is more oversight, inspection, poor plan review (if any), and a lack of peer review (sounds a bit like the NIST/OSHA report on the FIU bridge collapse, and Harbour Cay). A misdiagnosis as to the severity of the problem circa 2000-2020 seems tenable as well.
A lack of robustness in the recertification language that at least tempts engineers to ignore life-safety and ignore the existing plans and focus solely on signs of weathering/distress and fixate maniacally on windows and doors and electrical wiring, and ignore wind loading (since it wasn't even mentioned) of the building. (you need the internet archive to see the 'at the time" language, they've revised it.
Current (November 18, 2021):
November 2, 2013 copy:
You can compare the language using Draftable, PDF24 or I love PDF, if you wish, but the bit about wind load was added recently, previously they got excited about windblown gravel, but not the global LFRS, and also waived dead and live loads as a concern because they were "time tested".
I'll grant that the ACI 318 punching shear provisions have changed over the years (See Giduquio, Cheng, Dlamini,
Reexamination Of Punching Shear Strength And Deformation Capacity Of Corner Slab-Column Connection, December 2017, for a reasonably thorough historical treatment), if that's where you're going with that comment, but I'm not convinced that can be laid at the feet of NIST the way your comment seems to suggest it can, that research didn't come from NIST and the original research wasn't from NIST, either, that I know of.
You could argue that the over-reinforced columns (i.e.
too small and/or too much reinforcing steel, reported by the Miami Herald, Jan 21, 2022) are a pretty obvious issue that a peer review in the 1980s should have/would have caught (that the newspaper experts seized on it early on pretty much supports that claim), and also particularly in light of
Harbour Cay having the same flaw (columns too small in cross section for the vertical rebar, slabs "too thin"), a review at the time should have caught it, but it's not clear that the over-reinforced columns exactly led to the collapse here, given they worked for 40 or so years, and a lot of attention is being paid to the horizontal bars and punching shear as initiating the collapse. Now, excess vertical reinforcement for the cross-section would complicate the horizontal bar placement (as was seen at Harbour Cay), but we've not seen any evidence that there were large voids in the column-slab joint a la Harbour Cay, which, incidentally, collapsed during construction.
Also (seemingly) in common with Harbour Cay (that I don't recall being brought up in the reporting), is the slab depth that is "too thin" (in the obvious sense of too thin to omit the checks for deflection, rather than meaning there's a blatant punching shear deficiency). The slab being "too thin" to omit the deflection check would make a punching shear issue more likely, but a thin slab doesn't guarantee a punching shear issue, or a collapse, or an issue, even, and enlarging the columns (again, they were too small for the reinforcement on some levels even per the 1963 code), increases the perimeter of the column and increases the punching shear strength per the 1963 codes, et. seq.).
You can also extend the stronger column concrete out from the column into the slab to increase punching shear strength that way, as well., and there were (depending on the floor) concrete column strengths higher than the slab strength.
There is also a limit on column versus slab strength that wasn't respected on at least one level (See section 917 in the 1963 code, also apparently not flagged by anybody in the reporting, though maybe that was deemed too complex for the newspaper reporting and got cut). There are ways of dealing with that issue that might not be in the drawings (I'd rule out option 3 since there are relatively few beams in the building). It's possible that sort of puddling of column concrete around the column-slab joint was implicit or standard practice at the time, and thus not noted on the drawings, or it was a field memo or something. It was already an option in the concrete code for say, 15 years.
Of course, now that I look at it, Harbour Cay collapsed March 27, 1981, the NIST report came out September 1981, and the CTS plumbing plan (it's what I have written down) is dated August 13, 1979 (two years before Harbour Cay collapsed). For all we know, the Harbour Cay people could have gone to CTS and gotten inspiration that their columns were fine because another comparison structure used similarly sized columns. But that undermines the whole "peer review should have caught this" at least some. I don't have the permit date or start/end of construction date for Champlain Towers South.
I won't hang Harbour Cay on the CTS designer. It's established that the Harbour Cay design engineers were quite new to concrete construction and designed a building quite beyond their depth. There are, however, similar potential flaws on both buildings.
