Hyatt collapse

This argument might yet be applied to the next catastrophic failure. However, it is to be hoped that as with the other major engineering failures mentioned in the introduction of this paper, the Hyatt collapse has also contributed to improvement in public safety and in the quality of built facilities by promoting a more advanced set of rales governing the design/constraction process. ... 

Altered Design Probed in Hyatt Collapse, Building Design and Construction, September 17-18 (1981). 

A second way of looking at forced expiration is with a maximum expiratory flow-volume (MEFV) curve, which describes maximum flow as a function of lung volume during a forced expiration (Fig. 12). In healthy human subjects, flow rates or flow-volume curves reach a maximum and will not increase with additional effort after the lungs have emptied 20-30% of their volume (Fry and Hyatt, 1960). This phenomenon of flow limitation is due to airway compression over most of the lung volume. Thus, flow rate is independent of effort and is determined by the elastic recoil force of the lung and the resistance of the airways upstream of the collapse point. In obstructive diseases of the lung this curve is shifted to the left, whereas restrictive diseases shift the curve in the opposite direction (also shown in Fig. 12). 

Figure 4.9. The lobby and atrium of the Hyatt Regency Kansas City Hotel afterthe skywalk collapse on July 17, 1981.

The collapse of the Hyatt Regency walkways was the result of a flaw in the design process control. However, the post-failure investigation efforts concentrated on design procedures and not on the process. It can well be argued that no clear industry-wide accepted definition of responsibilities existed at the time the hotel was designed and built. 

American Society of Civil Engineers. (2007). The Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse, http //www.asce.org/question-of-ethics-articles/jan-2007/. 

Department of Philosophy and Department of Mechanical Engineering. (1993a). The Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways Collapse, Texas A M University, NSF Grant Number DIR-9012252, http //ethics.tamu.edu/ Portals/3/Case%20Studies/HyattRegency.pdf... 

Moncarz, Piotr D. Taylor, Robert. (2000). Engineering Process Failure - Hyatt Walkway Collapse, Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 46-50. 

In 1981, two walkways suspended one above the other in the atrium of the relatively new Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, MO, suddenly collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring almost 200. This description of the disaster and subsequent actions is based on data and information provided by Delatte (2009), Goodman (1990), and Petroski (1985). 

Goodman, L. J. 1990. Revisiting the Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse. Civil Engineering News, March 20. 

The fundamental feature of all engineering hypotheses is that they state, implicitly if not explicitly, that a designed structure will not fail if it is used as intended. Engineering failures may then be viewed as disproved hypotheses. Thus, the failure of the Hyatt Regency elevated walkways disproved the hypothesis that those skywalks could support the number of people on them at the time of the collapse the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge dis-... 

Marshall, R. D., et al. Investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkwtys Collapse. (NBS Building Science Series 143.) Washington, D. C. U. S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, 1982. 

Consider the disaster at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, in Kansas City, on My 17, 1981. Two suspended walkways crowded with people collapsed in the lobby of the hotel, killing 114 people and injuring nearly 200. The cir-cnmstances are well described in Henry Petroski s important book. To Engineer Is Human (1982). The extensive investigations that followed... 

On July 17, 1981, during a weekly tea dance, two suspended walkways in the atrium area of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring 185. The collapse was one of the most serious structural failures in the history of the United States. 

Pfrang, Edward O., and Richard Marshall, Collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways, Civil Engineering, July, 1982, pp. 65-68. 

Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse (1981), United States... 

For engineers in the United States, one of the defining collapses for the profession occurred on July 17, 1981. The atrium of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency was crossed by three suspended walkways at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors. The 4th floor walkway was over the 2nd floor walkway, and the 3rd floor walkway was offset from the other two. 

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