Investigative Techniques for Structural Failures

Abstract

Brutus said the he came to bury Caesar not to praise him. Burial always sounds morbid while praise is exciting. So does a talk about safety - which involves structural failures - seems to be less pleasant to hear than a talk about engineering design and creativity. However, if you really think about it, we can learn a lot from failures to improve our design capability. I have been involved in creative engineering design for over four decades, and I have designed many noted structures. In the last 10 or 15 years I have also investigated hundreds of structural failures, many of them major, with numerous loss of human lives, such as the Hyatt Regency Skywalk in Kansas City, Wiow Island Power Plant Cooling Tower, the Mianus Bridge, on Rt. 95 in Connecticut, LAmbiance Towers in Bridgeport, Conn., etc. To determine the cause of failure thoroughly and to substantiate the conclusion is a task which may require the mobilization of the entire arsenal of the available engineering knowledg