[Newfie]

A towel holder is not a good place to start.

Something more substantial would be a better starting place, especially with inexpensive welding gear.

It was just an idea. It find a lot of satisfaction working with my hands.

[jedrider]

If it's something like a tool that comes under a lot of stress with you around it, it breaking suddenly and potentially causing serious injury probably isn't worth taking the risk on it.

Like a metro overpass.

[Newfie]

This book may give you some insight into why some failures occur.

https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-Human-F ... 0679734163

Product Description
How did a simple design error cause one of the great disasters of the 1980s - the collapse of the walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel? What made the graceful and innovative Tacoma Narrows Bridge twist apart in a mild wind in 1940? How did an oversized waterlily inspire the magnificent Crystal Palace, the crowning achievement of Victorian architecture and engineering? These are some of the failures and successes that Henry Petroski, author of the acclaimed The Pencil, examines in this engaging, wonderfully literate book. More than a series of fascinating case studies, To Engineer is Human is a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science and the chaotic realities of everyday life.

[jedrider]

OK. How did a Florida condominium get built to Mexico City standards? Or, is building high-risers on top of limestone inherently risky?

(Mexico City is also sited on limestone, I think. So, could this construction method be totally inappropriate for this foundation type?)

1 dead, at least 10 hurt in partial collapse of Florida condo building
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/24/surfside-building-collapse-miami-dade/

[Newfie]

Jed,

Dont be jumping to conclusions, way to early.

Almost any explanation has some possibility.

It is a beach front building, the part fronting the beach came down.

Perhaps it was undermined by hydraulic action?

Maybe an early victim of SLR?

[jedrider]

Closer look at Champlain Towers South
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2021/06/24/florida-beach-condo-buildling-collapse-investigation-underway/5333761001/

40 year inspection cycle! It's going to change to 30 or 20 in my estimation depending upon whether they are taking climate change and SLR serious or not.
Good job opportunity in Florida being a building inspector, while California is going to be looking for firefighters and retrofit companies that can harden against firenadoes.

[Newfie]

Subscribers only.

I was able to see that some researcher in the 1990’s noted the building was settling at about 2mm/year. That 20-30 years ago so a simple linear extrapolation would say about 2-3 inches of settlement.

But it may be that the ground settling under the foundation transferred load into the structure as the ground receded and over the years the structure took more and more load until it snapped.

Our Philly townhouse settled 7-1/4” on the common wall between buildings. Meaning both buildings settled the same amount. The house was built in 1887. A bathroom was remolded in 1929 and showed no signs of cracking. So my assumption is that the building has been stable since at least 1929. I had it surveyed by a very good engineer and by a very good civil engineer friend before purchase. Both felt it was ultimately stable. And it has proven to be so.

The point being 2-3” of settlement is of itself not a sure sign of failure. But does require some investigation into the cause.

[jedrider]

Nearly 100 people were still unaccounted for, authorities said, raising fears that the death toll could climb sharply.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/miami-building-collapse-100-unaccounted_n_60d53aa8e4b0da66c2ddbf37

Working at home may not be so safe after all. $600K two-bedroom units, so it must have been location, location.

[evilgenius]

The condo collapse in Florida points out that as much as we have a sort of social contract with our contemporaries, we also have a contract of sorts with those who came before. We can choose to trust them, taking their word for it.

On the other hand, we can also choose to doubt them. We are doing that right now, regarding wokeness and other things. Currently, that has meant canceling people, when they come under fire of doubt. I guess we will have answered the bell on this question when we can look at the past fairly, not panicking about it, and evaluate for not only what was done wrong, but what was done right?

It's nice to live by the beach. I'm sure that as long as nobody got there unfairly most of the rest of us wouldn't begrudge those people the life. It just shows that you can't get into anything personally without paying attention to some degree. Part of this whole investigation society is involved in is how far we can take the word of those we are supposed to trust. This is another example of discovering that trust was put into something it shouldn't have been, and not pulled away before it was too late. It's about how we make those sorts of decisions, then never really go back and re-evaluate them.

[Newfie]

Evil,

Some good points.

My observation is that in many fields competence is decreasing pretty substantially. Moe and more there is less and less that deserves trust.

[JuanP]

I live a few blocks away from the collapsed building. I am looking out the window at the dust cloud the rescue operation causes. It has been surrounding the area and drifting West with the trade winds for two days now. Both my wife and I know people who are still missing and probably dead. It is good that this happened in late June because many units were empty; if this had happened in Winter the casualty numbers would be much worse.

I found this NYT article on the probable causes of the accident quite reasonable.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what- ... d=msedgntp

"Engineering and architectural experts said it may take a long time to piece together what caused the partial collapse of the condo building near Miami, but there are a few areas that investigators will want to look for: corroded components, an undermined foundation, or defects in the construction or design.

“When a building falls downward on itself it’s more likely that there was a loss of support somewhere,” said Abieyuwa Aghayere, a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Drexel University."

My guess is that the building's foundation may have been undermined by a sinkhole caused by broken water, sewer, or storm water drainage pipes. Surfside is a city built on the same barrier island that Miami Beach and Bal Harbour are built. The island has a zoolitic limestone bedrock with sand on top. If the building's foundation was not supported by reinforced concrete pillars drilled into the bedrock, then the whole structure would have been supported by a concrete slab resting on top of the sand. There are many buildings in the area that were built this way, which is insane, IMO.

I have no doubt that the building also had corroded components, but I doubt they would have been structurally relevant. Almost all oceanfront buildings of that age in this area have significant corrosion when they reach their 40 year inspection, and normally require years of renovations on their exterior walls, exposed surfaces, and balconies, but not on supporting pillars.

I've been to the building in question many times and drive, bike, walk, rollerblade, kite surf, kayak, and raft past it on an almost daily basis. the building was well maintained(by local standards) and undergoing renovations at this time. It is not considered a luxury building by local standards, but an upper middle class one.

[jedrider]

2018 Report Detailed ‘Major Structural Damage’ To Florida Condo That Collapsed
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/structural-damage-florida-condo-building-collapse_n_60d72419e4b0b9db2496ccd1

Well, residents will just have to sue themselves for not heeding warnings and doing the required repairs. It seems to me that
the building was already recognized as failed even back then.

The good news is that these failures are not just random and without prior warning.

[jedrider]

Before Florida Building Collapse, $9 Million In Repairs Needed
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/florida-building-collapse-repairs_n_60d877c4e4b072e7c988211b

$10M to repair, so for 300 units (I'm guessing), that's $30K per unit. Home Owners association should have just
got a 30 year loan and jacked up fees, what, maybe, $150 extra a month? So, I'm curious now about what was said at the
HOA meetings?

[Newfie]

Juan,

Thanks for that assessment and report.

FWIW I Also think the foundations were severely undermined. My suspicion is the final report will find the building itself was in pretty decent shape. The foundations were undermined and received less and less support. There came a time when the building was holding the foundations more than the foundations were holding the building. Until it snapped.

The failure mode is for gradual deterioration with the building obviously slowly failing. As was said, the building is talking to us. The slow collapses are when the building goes down, slowly and incrementally, with the foundations. Here the building came down a whole bunch. That almost has ti mean there were significant voids or at least uncompacted earth beneath the foundations.

I dont expeft a definitive report in less than 18 months. A lot of the evidence will have been destroyed and covered over by the collapse and subsequent rescue efforts.

I predict a boom in subsurface investigations. It will be real interesting to find out what other buildings are up to.

Another point, the adjacent Howard Johnsons was demolished about 2015 with a new building being erected about 2018. I wonder if that will be implicated.

[jedrider]

Deadly Collapse of Illusions in Miami
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/28/deadly-collapse-of-illusions-in-miami/

Yes, this is how I would describe it if I could, that more than a building collapsed, that our 'illusions' did as well.

[jedrider]

Public infrastructure has the opposite problem to private infrastructure: Too many hurdles and requirements.

Why does it cost so much to build things in America?
https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america

Local building codes in California are tightening all of the time. I'm waiting for all the fire-hazards (in California) to start being regulated away to make room for yet more costly building practices.

Mind you, I'm not complaining nor taking the position of the bean counters, but I do think that our political and legal baggage is probably weighing us down and, especially, the former.

[Newfie]

Once deeper into the article it starts to get better.



I have worked on a few projects that did quite well and many that did very poorly.

Projects are long, have much civic and political input. Real estate developers have a huge dog in the fight early on and fight viciously to get the best route for themselves. Same thing with communities.

The transit agencies do not have the staff to manage large projects and farm that work out to consultants. From design through construction management the Owner is largely hands off, except for political considerations.

And frequently the head of the transit agency is some political appointee who has little or no clue. What is Pete Buttigegs background that prepares him to deal with transportation?

I think the article did a good job of covering the various reasons why it all goes down, and there are many. In the few that did well had the Owner made a concerted effort to squelch the BS and facilitate the project. Generally the Contractor is not the problem, he makes money by getting the project done. But all too frequently the Owner gets in the way one way or another, never intentionally, but creates a disruptive environment.

Some places, like NYC, are notoriously bad. Many contractors simply will not touch a NYC project. Those that do play a deep political game, and often get burned. Washington, DC is also pretty shitty. Few agencies ay on time often delaying progress payments for years. That is killer for a Contractor who makes his money, his profit, by turning the money over quickly.

[jedrider]

So, Newfie, what happened in Boston's "Big Dig?"

Seems like it was in the news forever and then the tiles were falling on the cars as they drove through the subterranean tunnel.

[Newfie]

I have no personal knowledge of that project. I assume it is typical of others I have worked on.

The short answer is: People.

Think about this, the Amtrak NE corridor was built by private capital nearly 100 years ago.

Look up who built the tunnels between NY and NJ and when.

Or the Brooklyn Bridge.

Maybe we would do better to identify and emulate past successes rather than past failures.

[ROCKMAN]

newfie - "And frequently the head of the transit agency is some political appointee who has little or no clue." As you probably know all too well same in the pure private sector world. Had one manager (with big time engineering degree) came very close to killing me and the other rig hands trying to avoid a cost over run. And another group of managers ignoring an obvious damaged BOP in 5,000' of water in the GOM because they didn't want to spend $5 million to pull and repair it. Of course they were sitting in Houston. But even managers on the rig didn't argue for it. Didn't want to chance their big salaries. Going in hole we slammed into the BOP with the drill pipe it shook the massive rig almost a mile above it woke up me and the other sleeping hands. Unnerving to come out of bunkroom and see others in hallway putting on lifejackets. And the with no alarm go back to bed and try to sleep.

Almost all rig accidents I saw over 4 decades were from human error. Even equipment failures that should gave been caught before it failed. Human nature. And unfortunately humans 1are almost always in charge. LOL