Failures and Learning from Them

A review of some actual failures and the resulting death, disruption, economic loss, and other consequences provides insight into the causes of the failures and the related liabilities. Although liability can be incurred as a result of breach, fraud, and negligence, negligence is by far the dominant cause. 

This section s purpose is accomplished by discussing one failure and mentioning a few others with the hope that the reader will continue to be a student of failures. An excellent resource is Norbert J. Delatte, Jr s book Beyond Failure Forensic Case Studies for Civil Engineers (2009), which uses a case study approach to draw technical, procedural, and ethical lessons from many unfortunate failures. The over 40 case studies are organized by specialty areas such as statics and dynamics structural analysis and fluid mechanics and hydraulics and management, ethics, and professional issues. 

The focus in this section is on relatively dramatic structural failures. Lack of strength is typically the cause and the resulting failure is usually instantaneous and catastrophic. There can also be what might be referred to as serviceability failures. Examples of this much less dramatic, but more common type of failure are roof deterioration, excessive floor deflection, and vibration of structural components. 

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Other Projects Other Failures and Learning from Them... 

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