Bridges Dee bridge The Dee Bridge in
Chester, England, was designed by
Robert Stephenson, using
girders of
cast iron reinforced with
struts of
wrought iron. On 24 May 1847, it collapsed as a train passed over it, killing five people. Its collapse was the subject of one of the first formal inquiries into a structural failure. This inquiry concluded that the design of the structure was fundamentally flawed, as the wrought iron did not reinforce the cast iron, and that the casting had failed due to repeated flexing.
First Tay Bridge The First Tay bridge disaster was followed by a number of
cast iron bridge collapses, including the collapse of the first
Tay Bridge across the
Firth of Tay in Scotland on 28 December 1879. Like the Dee Bridge, the Tay collapsed when a train passed over it, killing 75 people. The bridge failed because it was constructed from poorly made cast iron, and because the engineer
Thomas Bouch failed to consider
wind loading on it. Its collapse resulted in cast iron being replaced by steel construction, and a complete redesign in 1890 of the
Forth Bridge, which became the first bridge in the world made entirely of steel.
First Tacoma Narrows Bridge The 1940 collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge in
Washington, United States, is sometimes characterized in physics textbooks as a classic example of resonance, although this description is misleading. The catastrophic vibrations that destroyed the bridge were not due to simple mechanical resonance, but to a more complicated oscillation between the bridge and winds passing through it, known as
aeroelastic flutter.
Robert H. Scanlan, a leading contributor to the understanding of bridge aerodynamics, wrote an article about this misunderstanding. This collapse, and the research that followed, led to an increased understanding of wind/structure interactions. Several bridges were altered following the collapse to prevent a similar event occurring again. The only fatality was a dog. carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. The bridge
catastrophically failed during the evening
rush hour on 1 August 2007, collapsing to the river and riverbanks beneath. Thirteen people were killed and 145 were injured. Following the collapse, the
Federal Highway Administration advised states to inspect the 700 U.S. bridges of similar construction after a possible design flaw in the bridge was discovered, related to large steel sheets called
gusset plates which were used to connect
girders together in the truss structure.
Buildings Thane building collapse On 4 April 2013, a building collapsed on tribal land in
Mumbra, a suburb of
Thane in
Maharashtra, India. It has been called the worst
building collapse in the area; 74 people died, including 18 children, 23 women, and 33 men, while more than 100 people survived. The building was under construction and did not have an
occupancy certificate for its 100 to 150 low- to middle-income residents Approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued from the building alive. It is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history. The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments, and several other shops. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in the building. Warnings to avoid using the building after cracks appeared the day before had been ignored. Garment workers were ordered to return the following day and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour.
Sampoong Department Store collapse On 29 June 1995, the five-story
Sampoong Department Store in the
Seocho District of
Seoul, South Korea, collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 502 people, with another 1,445 being trapped. In April 1995, cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the fifth floor of the store's south wing due to the presence of an air-conditioning unit on the weakened roof of the poorly built structure. On the morning of 29 June, as the number of cracks in the ceiling increased dramatically, store managers closed the top floor and shut off the air conditioning, but failed to shut the building down or issue formal evacuation orders as the executives themselves left the premises as a precaution. Five hours before the collapse, the first of several loud bangs was heard emanating from the top floors, as the vibration of the air conditioning caused the cracks in the slabs to widen further. Amid customer reports of vibration in the building, the air conditioning was turned off but, the cracks in the floors had already grown to 10 cm wide. At about 5:00 p.m. local time, the fifth-floor ceiling began to sink, and at 5:57 p.m., the roof gave way, sending the air conditioning unit crashing through into the already-overloaded fifth floor.
Ronan Point On 16 May 1968, the 22-story residential tower Ronan Point in the
London Borough of Newham collapsed when a relatively small gas explosion on the 18th floor caused a structural wall panel to be blown away from the building. The tower was constructed of
precast concrete, and the failure of the single panel caused one entire corner of the building to collapse. The panel was able to be blown out because there was insufficient reinforcement steel passing between the panels. This also meant that the loads carried by the panel could not be redistributed to other adjacent panels, because there was no route for the forces to follow. As a result of the collapse, building regulations were overhauled to prevent
disproportionate collapse and the understanding of precast concrete detailing was greatly advanced. Many similar buildings were altered or demolished as a result of the collapse.
Oklahoma City bombing On 19 April 1995, the nine-story concrete framed
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, United States, was struck by a
truck bomb causing partial collapse, resulting in the deaths of 168 people. The bomb, though large, caused a significantly disproportionate collapse of the structure. The bomb blew all the glass off the front of the building and completely shattered a ground floor
reinforced concrete column (see
brisance). At second story level a wider column spacing existed, and loads from upper story columns were transferred into fewer columns below by girders at second floor level. The removal of one of the lower story columns caused neighbouring columns to fail due to the extra load, eventually leading to the complete collapse of the central portion of the building. The bombing was one of the first to highlight the extreme forces that blast loading from terrorism can exert on buildings, and led to increased consideration of terrorism in structural design of buildings.
Versailles wedding hall The Versailles wedding hall (), located in the
Talpiot neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, is the site of the most fevered civil disaster in
Israel's history. At 22:43 on Thursday night, 24 May 2001 during the wedding of Keren and Asaf Dror, a large portion of the third floor of the four-story building collapsed, killing 23 people. The bride and the groom survived.
World Trade Center Towers 1, 2, and 7 In the
September 11 attacks, two commercial airliners were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center in New York City. The impact, explosion and resulting fires caused both towers to collapse within less than two hours. The impacts severed exterior columns and damaged core columns, redistributing the loads that these columns had carried. This redistribution of loads was greatly influenced by the hat trusses at the top of each building. The impacts dislodged some of the fireproofing from the steel, increasing its exposure to the heat of the fires. Temperatures became high enough to weaken the core columns to the point of
creep and
plastic deformation under the weight of higher floors. The heat of the fires also weakened the perimeter columns and floors, causing the floors to sag and exerting an inward force on exterior walls of the building.
7 World Trade Center also collapsed later that day; the 47-story skyscraper collapsed within seconds due to a combination of a large fire inside the building and heavy structural damage from the collapse of the North Tower.
Champlain Towers On 24 June 2021, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condominium building in
Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed, causing dozens of injuries and 98 deaths. The collapse was captured on video. One person was rescued from the rubble, and about 35 people were rescued on 24 June from the uncollapsed portion of the building. Long-term degradation of reinforced concrete-support structures in the underground parking garage, due to water penetration and corrosion of the reinforcing steel, has been considered as a factor in—or the cause of—the collapse. The issues had been reported in 2018 and noted as "much worse" in April 2021. A US$15 million program of remedial works had been approved at the time of the collapse.
First Congregational Church, New London, Connecticut On 24 January 2024 the spire of this
Gothic Revival stone church in
New London, Connecticut, United States, collapsed, bringing down the roof and irretrievably damaging the structure.
Aircraft test demonstrated the same failure that caused the
1963 Elephant Mountain &
1964 Savage Mountain crashes. Repeat structural failures on the same type of aircraft occurred in 1954, when two
de Havilland Comet C1 jet airliners crashed due to decompression caused by
metal fatigue, and in 1963–64, when the
vertical stabilizer on four
Boeing B-52 bombers broke off in mid-air.
Other Warsaw Radio Mast On 8 August 1991, at 16:00 UTC, the Warsaw radio mast near
Gąbin, Poland, the tallest man-made object ever built before the erection of
Burj Khalifa, collapsed as a consequence of an error in exchanging the guy-wires on the highest stock. The mast first bent and then snapped at roughly half its height. It destroyed at its collapse a small mobile crane of Mostostal Zabrze. As all workers had left the mast before the exchange procedures, there were no fatalities, in contrast to the similar collapse of the
WLBT Tower in 1997.
Hyatt Regency walkway On 17 July 1981, two suspended walkways through the lobby of the
Hyatt Regency in
Kansas City, Missouri, United States, collapsed, killing 114 and injuring more than 200 people at a tea dance. The collapse was due to a late change in design, altering the method in which the rods supporting the walkways were connected to them, and inadvertently doubling the forces on the connection. The failure highlighted the need for good communication between design engineers and contractors, and rigorous checks on designs and especially on contractor-proposed design changes. The failure is a standard case study on engineering courses around the world, and is used to teach the importance of
ethics in engineering. ==See also==