Recent Engineering Debacles 7

[hidalgoe]

HellO:

What have been the results of recent engineering debacles, like Boston's Big Dig concrete section that fell and killed some folks in a car or Katrina meant for PE's as far as liability and ethics are concerned?

 

[djs]

I have to say that it has been my recent experience that the quality of engineering being produced by "engineering" companies has been declining. In our case, when we see a sample of such lack, we issue RFIs etc, which usually lead to change orders, increasing the cost to the owner.

However I have been seeing some signs that the owners are starting to make the engineering firms pay for these change orders. In the past it was the contractor which had to pay, but then they realized finally what was happening, hired engineers of their own, and so passed the costs on up.

It has been my unfortunate experience that engineering firms have not been held accountable for engineering mistakes and omissions. Only in a very few high profile cases has this happened. This resulted in an increase of sloppily engineering.

 

[JLSeagull]

Whether lump sum or reimbursible the managers of large projects are consumed by the budget. The design firms reduce their labor hours by providing several methods with the full support of the client company project managers. Examples include providing less detail, outsourcing work to lower cost labor markets, packaging more design responsibility with equipment packages and expecting construction to handle fabrication details. Whether a good or bad thing depends upon the locaiton of your seat at the table.

 

[rbulsara]

Assigning change order blame is not that straight forward. Usually the roots are in the fact that you get what you pay for!

"Production house" A/E or E firms have bigger share of the blame as they generally believe in push the design out of the door and will worry about changes later.

In many cases owner would not pay enough fees or allow time to finish the design in detail, etc. We can start a separate and endless thread on this topic. So I would stop here.

Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[DRC1]

Hyatt Regency: There was no field modification. The modifications were made by a detailer that was not an engineer and although the drawings were stamped upon review, the stamping engineer did not review the drawing or supervise the review of the drawings. There were as I recall, three levels of precast slabs supportted off of steel tubes hung by rods from the ceiling. There were several flaws to the design. The orginal design was designed as a single rod with a stuctural tube under the slab. A hole in the tube allowed the rod to pass through and the tube was held in place with a nut and washer. Thus each connection carried the weight of on slab. In the revised shop drawing, the tubes had two hole at each end. the rods only reached from slab to slab. then a new rod was inserted ino the hole and secured by the same bolt detail in the original design. This forced the connection to carry the load of all the above slabs, which exceeded its capacity. In addition, rather than using tubes, channles welded toe to toe were used and the welds were not structurall sufficent. Further the rods were not of sufficent diameter to carry the load. Finally the washers used in the connection did not span the webs of the tubes and had the potential to punch through the tube. So it was not one error but several errors and as far as I know it was a change between the shop drawing detailer and the designer. As tragic as it was, it is an important reminder of how important the details are.

 

[JAE]

I don't think it was ever intended to use tubes. Flange-tip welded channels were detailed in the first drawings by the EOR Gillam.

 

[diarmud]

Texas A&M conducted a study of this under a NSF Grant # DIR 9012252.

It states "With many party-goers standing and dancing on the suspended walkways, connections supporting the ceiling rods that held up the second and fourth-floor walkways across the atrium failed, and both walkways collapsed onto the crowded first-floor atrium below. The fourth-floor walkway collapsed onto the second-floor walkway, while the offset third-floor walkway remained intact."

The dancing could not have helped but the report states the original design did not meet the bulding code requirements.

It was going to happen sooner or later.

Regards.

 

[JLSeagull]

I would not go so far as stating that a failure event was a certainty because the design failed to meet code.

Also, perhaps the grant covers many studies. Searching for NSF Grant DIR 9012252 brings up illegal handling, storing, and disposing of hazardous wastes at a defense site.

http://ethics.tamu.edu/ethics/aberdeen/aberdee1.htm

 

[JLSeagull]

Here is the Hyatt study:

http://www.engineering.com/Library/...ticleView/articleId/175/Walkway-Collapse.aspx

 

[ewh]

Seeing as how the best example brought forward so far occurred over twenty years ago, I think this thread is actually putting engineering in a very good light.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[MacGyverS2000]

ewh, you don't consider the Big Dig accident of just a couple of years ago to be a good example of a serious screwup?

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[kelowna]

Are we talking in the USA or also internationally. There have been quite a few bridge/building failures both in China and in India lately. They do not get a lot of publicity, but they certainly happen.

 

[IRstuff]

Didn't some sort of structure at a football stadium collapse recently in the US?

And here is a garage structure collapse in 2008:

http://www.emsresponder.com/web/onl...-After-Florida-Parking-Garage-Collapse/1$6662

And there was a pretty recent hotel construction collapse in Shanghai, I think...

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[diarmud]

JLSeagull,

Search for "Hyatt + walkway +collapse" in Google, you'll find it.

A structural engineer looking at the drawing of the reapproved shop drawings and looking at the loads would have found it to have eventually failed regardless of code.

Regards.

 

[ewh]

Yes, the Big Dig was indeed a serious screwup; however it seems that most of the posts here are focusing on the Hyatt collapse, which did claim more lives.
That said, there really aren't many such catastrophies happening in the US, which, IMO, puts the US industry in a good light.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[CajunCenturion]

Let's also not forget
[li]Challenger and Columbia[/li]
[li]I-35W bridge[/li]
[li]Schoharie Creek Bridge[/li]

And wasn't there a failure of the Teton Dam around 30 years ago?

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[JLSeagull]

I would need to search for the Schoharie Creek bridge. However, the space shuttle design occurred in the 1970's and the I-35 bridge in MN was designed decades ago too. Other debacles include the Bhopal India accident and numerous plant explosions. I am sure that you can find recently designed plants that exploded or had major releases of toxic or hazardous substances.

 

[oneintheeye]

I believe the space shuttle failed because of decision made to launch outside of the 'design' temperatures. A decision which led to the engineer who was at the meeting resigning on the spot. So that wasn't a bad design as such, it was a bad decision and more of a management one than an engineering one.

 

[JLSeagull]

If operation below zero degree C (below the design temperature) was unsafe, perhaps a better design could have included a temperature interlock. Thus conscious intervention would be required to bypass the interlock for a low temperature launch.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Interlocks only make things idiot- resistant.

Nothing could make a machine manager- resistant.
The combination of power and ignorance is unstoppable.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[oneintheeye]

but there was no need for an expensive repair if it worked fine. Due to commercial and political pressures they launched when the outside temperature was to low (or lower than they had tested to). It was due to a seal not working due to lack of expansion at low temps. Look up the report I think the company at 'fault' was Thiakoll, (not sure if i spelt it right). It was a management decision, in fact the enginneer who said no was allegedlly told at the meetting take your engineering hat off and put your management one on. They took a risk. Its like someone saying this building will take a load of x and a manager saying oh well we'll stick 2x on it anyway.
I also don't think with respect a simple comment like why didn't they fit xxx when you have no idea of the design or system is not really helpful other than to throw possibly unwarrented critism at the designers.