Street Date : February 17, TCIN : UPC : Description About the Book Whenever a building, bridge, tunnel or dam collapses, it is front page news. Now two of the world's premier structural engineers take readers on a journey through the history of structural disasters, from the Parthenon and Rome's Coliseum to the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Book Synopsis The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are in the end very human ones, tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces all coming together in sometimes dramatic and always instructive ways. Report incorrect product info. Shipping details Estimated ship dimensions: 1 inches length x 6. Return details This item can be returned to any Target store or Target.
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Email address. Sign up. About Target Careers. Email Signup. Some of us are nostalgic about it, but progress cannot be stopped. Let the domes be. The C. Post Dome Collapse In C.
Post College, part of Long Island University, built an elegant theater center seating thirty-five hundred spectators on its lovely acre ha campus at Brookville, Long Island, New York. The ft. The trusses were hooped by horizontal steel parallels in the shape of a channel [ , creating a hybrid structure that imitated in part the large steel section American domes and in part the lighter European steel pipe domes.
The top of the dome was strengthened by a steel compression ring, and the bottom by the circular canopy acting as a tension ring. The 3. The dome roof surface consisted of plywood panels covered by a thermal insulating material, called Tectum, and a coating of a plastic, called Hypalon, for waterproofing. Post dome had little, if anything, in common with the classical domes of masonry or concrete. Its shallow profile had a ratio of rise to span of only l to 7, as against that of l to 2 of the Pantheon in Rome or the l to 1.
Its structure was reticulated rather than continuous. Its weight of steel was less than 10 psf 0. It had been honored with numerous architectural awards. It was designed in accordance with a classical simplified structural theory, usually applied to concrete thin-shell domes and known as the membrane theory.
Its stability had been checked by a very recent theory proposed by James 0. Permit of Occupancy No. The dome had stood up proudly and safely for seven years under winter snows and island winds. Or could they? Between and A.
Only four days earlier the by ft. It would have been stronger and cheaper! Police, college officials, the press, and the representatives of the Insurance Company of North America, carrier for the university, rushed to the site.
Post Dome fourteen thousand students were away on Christmas vacation. But the two-million-dollar auditorium had been destroyed, and nobody could or would say whether by the forces of nature or by structural mistakes in design or construction. The experts were called in. Three days later Nicholas W. Koziakin, a structural engineer with the renowned New York City office of Mueser, Rutledge, Johnston and DeSimone, inspected the site and, after numerous additional visits, presented on May 10 his thorough but qualitative report.
He advised that a more realistic model of the reticulated dome should be analyzed by a rigorous theory to check the design. Weidlinger Associates was entrusted with this analysis, and its report of May proved Mr. As in some other structures, for the reticulated dome of the C. Post center "less was more. Indeed, that had been the story on the night of January 21, , when a load of snow blown by an east wind had lodged onto the leeward side of the dome.
This extremely simple theory was derived toward the end of the last century to evaluate the structural behavior of perfectly spherical or rotational dome shapes, which are made out of materials with identical properties at each point of, and in any direction on the dome surface they are called isotropic , under gravity loads perfectly symmetrical about the vertical axis of the dome or, in case of winds, under horizontal loads equally pushing on the wind side and pulling on the leeward side of the dome.
The last assumption is contrary to the action of wind on actual domes and to test results on dome models in a wind tunnel. It was used before the advent of the computer and is now abandoned. Wind actually exerts suction over most of the surface of a shallow dome. Under these conditions the theory proves that symmetrical gravity loads per unit of dome surface or, as assumed for the snow load, per unit of floor area covered by the dome are carried to the dome circular support by the meridians stressed in compression and the parallels acting as hoops, provided the support forces, or reactions, act in a direction tangential to the dome surface.
For example, they should act vertically upward on a dome in the shape of a half sphere Fig. Since reticulated domes weigh 5 to 10 psf [0. It is fairly obvious that a reticulated dome does not have the same structural properties at every point and in all directions it doesn't even exist at points inside its meshes ; it is nonisotropic or anisotropic.
Finally, since most of the bars of the mesh are compressed, reticulated domes must be checked against the dangerous phenomenon of instability in buckling as a whole, which causes the dome to invert or snap through.
You may easily check instability in buckling by pushing down on a thin metal or plastic ruler that will bend out at right angles to its thin surface and lose all capacity to resist compression higher than a small push [p. Weidlinger Associates checked by computer these theoretical conclusions on a realistic model of the reticulated structure, and its results were validated by the ripping off of the roofing materials and inspection of the uncovered roof structure.
All the compressed diagonals, inclined in the direction of the wind, were buckled, and those tensed were overstressed; the upper compressed ring was bent and twisted. For lack of an adequate stabilizing system the dome collapsed like a pack of cards. But the most significant error had been made in the evaluation of the dome's stability against snap-through the phenomenon that collapsed the two Binishells discussed earlier in this chapter , leading to a coefficient of safety of 8.
He proved that it was proportional to the thickness of the shell and to the elastic modulus of the material a coefficient measuring its strain under stress [see p. Theodor von Karman, in collaboration with Hsue Shen Tsien, refined his derivation in the thirties and changed the value of c to 0. A search of the literature on the subject showed Mario Salvadori that the experimental value of c was at most 0. A safety factor of 3 is usually adopted against the danger of dome snap-through, reducing the design value of the coefficient c to 0.
As shown in the following section, the failure of the C. Post dome was not unique. Approximate methods of design had to be used sometimes, even in our recent past, for lack of available theoretical knowledge or computing facilities, but designers aware of their limitations then used higher coefficients of safety.
The structural engineer must be grateful for the incredibly swift progress achieved in computing during the last few decades that allows the routine solution today of problems that even master designers were unable to analyze only a few years ago.
Daring and prudence, when used together, lead to new and safe structures. Today we can be more confident than ever of our designs and hence more innovative, but if wise, we are also perpetually vigilant. This is why almost all our structures stand up. Designed by Dr. A 57 ft. It consisted of three layers of pipes: the intermediate oriented along the parallels or hoops of the dome, the upper and lower along lines inclined at opposite angles to the meridians, together creating a mesh of almost equilateral triangles Fig.
The pipes had outer diameters varying from 1. The weight of the pipe structure was amazingly low, only 6. The fairly new structure of the dome was conservatively designed in accordance with the best engineering practice of the time. The European tendency to design very light dome structures stemmed from the designers' virtuosity and competitiveness but, more important, from economic considerations deriving from the high cost of materials and the relatively low cost of labor. In the Bucharest dome these suggested the adoption of the pipe structure 3.
The dome in the Romanian capital looked like a triumph of high technology over the forces of nature and of economics. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "All that glitters is not gold.
Interestingly enough, the pipe structure was not torn apart; it just snapped through, hanging, almost undamaged in the shape of a dish, above the floor from the robust concrete ring at its base. We have seen in the previous section that reticulated domes are often designed as if they were thin continuous shells, by uniformly spreading the material of the bars or pipes over their surface and estimating the thickness of the " equivalent" thin shell.
This approach had been used by Lederer in designing the Bucharest dome, but without the help of the fundamental studies of D. The reader may remember the discussion in the previous section concerning the value of the overall buckling capacity of a thin-shell dome, which is expressed in terms of the value of a so-called buckling coefficient, whose safe value is assumed in good engineering practice to be ten times smaller than the value derived by purely theoretical considerations.
In the design of the Bucharest dome the buckling coefficient was chosen twice as large as the safe value, leading us to believe that theAchilles' heel of the dome lay in a buckling weakness. Yet the collapse puzzle is not solved by this realization. We owe the solution of this mystery to the investigation of the collapse by A.
Beles and M. Soare, both of the University of Bucharest. Thus bent into a wavy shape, the hoops were unable to develop the compression needed to restrain the meridians, and as the dome started inverting, their wavy deflections increased in amplitude, further reducing their strength. Soare also remarked later that the bridle node connections had been entirely unable to prevent the relative sliding of the pipes meeting at the nodes. Thus a probably minor saving in the cost of the connections may well have been a major contributory cause of the collapse.
It was redesigned as a steel dome of standard sections steel angles and wide-flange beams and stands majestically again in the center of the Romanian capital, but with a structure five times heavier than that of the original dome.
Algernon Charles Swinburne R edundancy is a needed property of all languages. It is a safeguard that permits us to understand a sentence even if we miss some of the words. On the other hand, ancient Hebrew lacked the verb "to be," without which we certainly would be unable to express our- 56 WHY 4.
Structural redundancy essentially allows the loads to be carried in more than one way-i. The simplest example of the difference between a stable and an unstable mechanical situation is demonstrated by a marble resting at the bottom of a bowl as against one balanced at the top of the same bowl turned upside down Fig. If the marble is displaced from its bottom position in the bowl, it tends to return to it and stay there; the marble is in a stable position. If the bowl is turned upside down and the marble is balanced at its top, even a small displacement of the marble tends to move it away from its original position-that is, to increase irreversibly its displacement.
In this case the marble situation is unstable. In cases of elastic instability the characteristics of the structure are such that if either the load reaches a so-called critical value or its stiffness is lower than a critical value, a progressive increase in stress occurs in the first case, and a progressive increase in deflection occurs in the second. Since, moreover, such increases are irreversible, they lead to the failure of the structure in either case.
Kansas City, Kansas, was incorporated first, in , and reached a population of , in Culture and wealth were popular in Kansas City, and so were sports. In the Kansas City Royals, the local baseball team, built themselves an open-air stadium seating 47, fans, and the Kansas City Kings, the local basketball team, a 17,seat covered arena on the old site of the Royals Horse and Cattle Fair.
Named after R. Crosby Kemper, one of the city's founding fathers, the Kemper Memorial Arena, also known as the Royals Arena from its location, hosted the Kings' games before the team was sold to Sacramento. Rodeos, ice shows, collegiate basketball games, and the games of the Kansas City Comets, the local soccer team, as well as crowds of large conventions, often filled its great hall. This superb arena was of such architectural significance that the American Institute of Architects honored it in with one of its prestigious awards and confirmed its importance as a manu-.
Murphy, stood on a high, isolated site at the outskirts of the city, its 4 acre 1. Why was its glory marred after only six years? Twenty-five minutes later Arthur LaMuster, an arena employee and the sole person in it at the time, heard strange noises emanating from the great hall and went into it to ascertain their origin.
When the noises suddenly became explosive, he barely had time to run out of the building before the central portion of the hanging roof, a 1 acre 0. Kansas City was stunned. It took four years for the city's case against the members of the construction team to reach the court, while experts for all parties vied to determine the causes of the failure.
The city recovered some, but not all, of the damages from its own insurance carrier on the arena and from the insurers of the construction team. On the other hand, everybody knew that during the six years the arena had stood it had survived, without apparent damage, more severe downpours and higher winds than those of June 4, Even a layperson understood that additional causes must have contributed to the failure.
Retained by one of the subcontractors ot the arena structure to investigate the collapse, Weidlinger Associates was able to obtain all the documents pertaining to its design and construction and to reach a clear picture of this initially puzzling failure. To illustrate them, a not particularly difficult task, it will be necessary first to describe the unusual but brilliantly conceived structure of the arena.
This schematic description of the structural system, unfortunately, is insufficient to explain the complex causes of the collapse and requires of the interested reader a more detailed understanding of how the roof was designed. The basic structural elements supporting the loads of the roof itself and those acting on it, as well as the weight of the upper part of the walls of the arena, were three external space frames spaced at ft. The horizontal element, or beam, of the portals consisted of a space frame of steel tubes with an equilateral 4.
The three sides of the triangular cross section were 54 ft. The joists rested on the north-south system of trusses, each consisting of two trusses 99ft.
The hanger assembly, because of its two essential functions, does not consist of a simple rod as the word "hanger" may have implied to the reader Fig. Since the weight of the roof itself is 26 psf 1. The remedial action, despite its cost, was approved by all the designers, but Michael Flynn, I. Pei's technical expert, said: "It was like putting your socks on after your shoes.
It was understood only thanks to the persistence of the I. Pei office who continued to study the problem. Research proved that the panels had been correctly installed, while the Davenport tests had shown that the cracks in the glass were not due to the wind motions, and the panels had not cracked at the "hot spots" located on the facades by the wind tests.
It was noticed that while the two lights were identically supported and designed to share equally the wind pressures and suctions, the wind loads in most cases first cracked the outer light both in the lab tests and on the tower facades.
The lab researchers, looking at the edge of the lead solder binding the reflective material sheet to the spacer Fig. It was the strength of these bonds that had done them in. Had they been weaker, less well researched, the panels would have been safe! Unfortunately too late, a last investigation showed that the material of the reflective panels had given the same kind of trouble in previous installations on smaller buildings.
Is there a moral to this story? There is indeed. Apr 20, David Baer rated it it was amazing Shelves: read-as-a-kid-formative. Read this multiple times, always with wonder and amazement at the seemingly-insignificant details that cause major disaster. And people die. Tends to make one appreciate government regulation. Dec 04, Dean rated it liked it Shelves: hilr.
It deals with the topic by studying examples, such as bridge failures, plane crashes, and so forth. It's not stylish, but it's interesting, and it was perfectly fine for the course. Still a nice book for understanding why buildings failed. Jun 26, Anita rated it really liked it. Great introduction. Would love to see another revised version one day. May 03, Lauren Olson rated it it was ok.
Book felt a bit all over the place, jumping from the topic at hand, to stories about bridges not buildings falling to his arguments in court. Engineering sounds boring but not in this case. Using examples we've read about in the papers, the authors explain how something was built and what went wrong to cause the failure.
It gave me an insight into how things work s I see more whenI look at buildings, bridges, etc. Well written, actually reads quickly. Plain language, no math or physics. Oct 07, Nicolas rated it really liked it. The author's intent is to educate the reader about past structures failing. The author explains why they fail, like if the design was poor or the rust problem was ignored.
He also wants to educate the reader about the forces that were incorporated in the time before the structure fails. The problem that this book talks about is that many buildings have fallen over the years, hurting hundreds of people. The solution to this problem is educating the future. We cannot change our past, but we can learn from those mistakes to not repeat them.
This is precisely what this book is doing, it is educating the future about past mistakes. So we do not make the same ones. The author organizes and writes this information in a case study style. This means that he takes previous information and explains it while also talking about what was done wrong and why did it bring the structure to the ground. I learned about different forces that structures experience. Some of these forces are tension, compression, and gravity.
I also learned that many metal structures fail because of metal fatigue. I also learned something about myself. I learned that I need pictures to understand the complex ideas of non-fiction. Without pictures I feel like I get lost or confused. They were detailed, but not too complex. Though I disliked the complex vocabulary and lack of following definitions. When reading you had to stop and use another source to define the terms.
It made reading less enjoyable. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes civil engineering books because this book deals with the forces and constructions a civil engineer would deal with. I would also recommend this to someone between the ages of because the vocabulary is advanced but it would be too simple for a 16 year old.
I would recommend this for both genders because a girl or boy could like civil engineering. Overall this book was very informative and in depth, but if you read it be ready for a vocabulary quiz. Sep 11, Caroline rated it really liked it. The beginning of chapter 16 sums up all the ways that buildings fall down the best: "We build structures with the faith that they will last forever These include neglect, abandonment, replacement, and war.
Which tended to put me to sleep, even when I was trying to pay attention. I did find the whole book really interesting. My favorite was the building in Mexico that was built at ground level, then the weight of the building pushed the water out of the soil underneath the building, so the building sank 6 feet and they had to build stairs down to the front door.
And then, 20 or so years later, there were a lot of buildings built in the surrounding area, and the building rose 12 feet and they built stairs to go up to get inside.
The really nice thing about this book was how they always told the end of the story to each failure. They include the results from court cases and the effect such things had on those investigating the causes. Like the guys who would cross the street at one corner just to cross back at the next in order to avoid a certain building they knew had pieces of the facade not attached properly.
The authors tried not to get terribly technical, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get through it. Jul 29, Jason Mccool added it. Very good. Although it starts out a bit slow, Mr. Levy and Mr Salvadori really showcase a wide variety of structural failures from around the world and across a broad timeframe. It's a good read for any engineer or architect looking to learn from the mistakes of the past so as to not repeat them, and for the average person wanting to learn some of the challenges of our job.
Overall, I don't think he gets too technical for the average reader, and the prolific illustrations and appendices are help Very good. Overall, I don't think he gets too technical for the average reader, and the prolific illustrations and appendices are helpful. Although he says at the end that the reader familiar with structural theory may want to skip the appendices, I thought there was still good information there for the engineer too if nothing else, it gives the engineer good ideas on how to explain structural concepts to their nonstructural friends, since a lot of us aren't the best communicators.
Each failure individually makes for a quick read, and they build on one another somewhat. He covers a good cross-section of structures, from towers to arenas to bridges to apartment buildings. He also canvasses the various causes, from construction negligence to design oversight to ignorance of failure modes to terrorism. This review is for the 2nd edition updated in to cover terrorism as cause of structural failure. Jan 02, Tristan Leisten rated it really liked it Shelves: shelf.
I read "Why Buildings fall down by Matthys Levy. I quite enjoyed this book, It provided an interesting mix of of architecture, and science. It promoted the idea of imperfection and learning from others mistakes. It provided reader involvement with multiple interesting tests, and experiments.
Throughout the book it talked about classic works of architecture, and failed architecture examples that teach classic mistakes. This book goes through important details of building and how they could have be I read "Why Buildings fall down by Matthys Levy. This book goes through important details of building and how they could have been prevented It talks personally to the reader and helped me understand different examples of architectural wonder. The author sends clear messages defined in each chapter, supported with real-life examples and mathematical explanations.
It can get confusing at some points with complicated math explanations, but it makes up for it by explaining with well drawn sketches and images.
This book is one of my personal favorites and is easy to read certain chapters and sections without needing to read the others in chronological order. The book is both educational, inspiring, and interesting.
Jul 05, Darshan Pala rated it really liked it. An exceptionally well written book! It is a good read not only for an outsider of the structural engineering community but also for a practicing engineer. The book is filled with illustration and at no point does it get boring well at least for a structural engineer. Salvadori is a gifted engineer and goes to great lengths in explaining not only the physics behind a tragedy, but also narrates the human side of the story very well.
There is also a very well written appendix at the end to give a An exceptionally well written book! There is also a very well written appendix at the end to give a birds-eye view of the various structural engineering basics.
I definitely recommend it to people who are just curious to know how a lot of structures work and also what all things that can go wrong with them. I do however believe, that the book gets a bit technical and might be difficult to follow for people with no background in physics. Aug 01, Gavin rated it really liked it. Probably best for the technically minded, but this is a great book. Salvadori puts an easy conversational tone on what would otherwise be fairly dry material.
Not only was I completely engaged by the stories of architecture's most notorious failures, I learned a lot about structural theory. To know why something falls down, he explains fully why it was standing in the first place. I'd read the 1st edition years ago, but I read the second edition recently and the afterward on the WTC collapse was Probably best for the technically minded, but this is a great book.
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