Building Failures

It is obvious that it is impossible to be absolutely certain that the hazard tree can be broken. It is, however, possible to set standards for c design, lighting, door construction, etc., that will result in acceptabl quencies of collision, tripping, etc., given the severity of the exp injurv Irom the condition. That is, we could conclude that the probability of building failure should be lower than the probability of tripping becau.se of the. severity of injury that may bet 1 with building failure. 

Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings. Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. Flooding causes major damage to lower floors of all structures near the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas may be required. 

Levy, M. 2002. Why Buildings Fall Down How Structures Fail. New York W. W. Norton. An important resource for students, this book discusses sources of building failure. 

Janssens, V., O Dwyer, D.W. Chryssanthopoulos, M.K. 2012. Assessing the Consequences of Building Failures. Structural Engineering International 22(1) 99-104. JCSS 2001. Probabilistic Assessment of Existing Structures. RILEM Publications S.A.R.L., edited by D. Diamantidis. 

Thomas McKaig s 1962 book Building Failures is a widely known collection of case studies intended for the use of engineers, architects, and contractors. Although he clearly places the blame on human error, McKaig believes that those involved in building failures are thonselves the victims of accidents, and... 

Whether or not the AEPIC concept works to improve the reliability of design and prevent the repetition of errors will also depend very strongly on how much cooperation the center gets from those who have records of experience for the computer files. In the impassioned preface to Building Failures, McKaig lamented ... 

McKaig, Thomas K. Building Failure Case Studies in Construction and Design. New York McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1962. 

NZSEE (2011) New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering (2011) Building safety evaluation following the Canterbury earthquakes. Report to the Royal Commission of inquiry into building failure, NZSEE, Wellington... 

Good earthquake design for timber requires that timber elements are loaded in the fashitm they are best suited to, that is, in bending or compression parallel to grain, where timber is both stronger and more ductile. However few building failures are caused by failure of the main structural elements. More failures are caused by poor detailing of connections, both timber to timber connections and timber connections to other materials such as concrete foundations. 

Typically, with lightly cross-linked materials the shear failure is cohesive. This is also the case for physically cross-linked materials such as styrenic block copolymers, particularly at elevated temperatures. However, as the cohesive strength of the PSA increases and/or as the resistance to peel adhesion falls, the mode of failure will tend to switch to adhesive, normally initiated as a delamination from the substrate at the corners of the tape. As the delamination grows and the stress builds, failure can be rapid and catastrophic with the debond crack traveling interfacially, alternately along the substrate and the backing interface. 

Fitzsimons, Neal, and Donald Vannoy, Establishing Patterns of Building Failures, Civil Engineering, Vol. 54, No. 1, American Society of Civil Engineers, January 1984. 

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