{"id":1962,"date":"2013-08-13T14:32:38","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T14:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=1962"},"modified":"2013-08-13T14:32:38","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T14:32:38","slug":"fairly-easy-estimating-the-investigative-cost-of-a-catastrophic-engineering-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/13\/fairly-easy-estimating-the-investigative-cost-of-a-catastrophic-engineering-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"(Fairly easy) Estimating the investigative cost of a catastrophic engineering failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I blogged recently on the difficulty estimating the cost of forensic engineering investigation (Ref. 1).\u00a0 The item included a tabulated assessment of the ease or\u00a0difficulty estimating the cost of\u00a0a\u00a0possible 16 or more\u00a0steps in an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>You could be excused for thinking that the more catastrophic the engineering\u00a0failure the more difficult estimating the cost\u00a0to investigate the cause.\u00a0 But, this is not necessarily the case at all.<\/p>\n<p>I thought of this\u00a0a few days ago when I\u00a0received a report that is being circulated on the internet about a\u00a013 story residential building collapsing in China in June\u00a02009\u00a0(Ref. 2).\u00a0\u00a0Take a look below;\u00a0it&#8217;s quite a sight to\u00a0see a\u00a0multi-story apartment\u00a0building lying on its side.<\/p>\n<p>Why would it be fairly easy to estimate the cost\u00a0to investigate the cause of the catastrophic collapse of a\u00a013 story building?\u00a0 Surely not easy, you say.<\/p>\n<p>Because reading the documents &#8211; one of the first steps in a forensic engineering investigation, would identify the type of foundation &#8211;\u00a0piles,\u00a0supporting the building.\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0simple site visit and visual examination would then\u00a0note the blunder\u00a0made on site.\u00a0 Based on these two simple tasks, it would be easy to hypothesize the cause with considerable reliability.<\/p>\n<p>For certain, a fairly standard\u00a0investigation of the foundation soil conditions would be carried out to confirm the\u00a0hypothesis &#8211; if, in the unlikely fact, the documents\u00a0did not\u00a0contain this soil data.<\/p>\n<p>It is fairly easy to estimate the cost of these particular forensic engineering investigative tasks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Document review,<\/li>\n<li>Site visit, and<\/li>\n<li>Standard soil tests &#8211; if the soil data was not already in the documents..<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By way of further comment, an experienced professional\u00a0engineer would\u00a0recognize\u00a0\u00a0 that a basic foundation engineering principle had been violated, that of excavating and undermining\u00a0the foundation on one side &#8211; this alone could cause the problem if the excavation was deep enough.\u00a0 Then, making\u00a0the situation worst\u00a0by\u00a0piling the excavated soil on the opposite side and surcharging the foundation.\u00a0 The rain\u00a0made the situation worse still\u00a0by increasing the surcharge weight of the excavated soil on the ground and possibly reducing the strength of the soil beneath the ground surface.<\/p>\n<p>The fact of the piled foundations would tell the engineer that the soils near the surface are weak adding further to the\u00a0effects of the undermining and surcharging.\u00a0 Piles simply carry or transfer the weight of a structure\/building through weak soils to bear on stronger soils at depth.<\/p>\n<p>Violation of this simple principle &#8211; undermining one side, surcharging the other, would leap off the note book page containing a sketch of a cross-section through the excavation, building\u00a0foundations, the\u00a0normal ground surface on the other side,\u00a0and surcharge pile on the ground.\u00a0 Never mind a note book &#8211;\u00a0draw the sketch on a cigarette package, the violated principle is that obvious; I don&#8217;t smoke but that&#8217;s what people use to do.<\/p>\n<p>A similar principle is at work prompting any one of us to be careful walking too close to the high, steep bank along the\u00a0shore of a lake or river lest we fall in like the\u00a0Chinese building fell down.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of catastrophic failures have also occurred in Canada, and estimating the cost of investigating\u00a0the cause\u00a0is sometimes easy.<\/p>\n<p>For example, the failure of the nine story high Transcona Grain Elevator in Winnipeg in\u00a01913 &#8211; you can find on Google.\u00a0\u00a0The elevator\u00a0failed &#8211; and leaned over 27 degrees, while being filled with wheat.\u00a0 The wheat\u00a0added\u00a0weight to the foundations such that the bearing capacity of the supporting soils was exceeded.\u00a0\u00a0Reading documents, a site visit, and a\u00a0fairly conventional\u00a0&#8211; and fairly easy to estimate, geotechnical investigation of the foundation soils would confirm a hypothesis of bearing capacity failure.<\/p>\n<p>So, estimating the cost of investigating the cause of a catastrophic failure is not always difficult.\u00a0 And,\u00a0if you don&#8217;t mind,\u00a0I would like to say that estimating the cost of investigating\u00a0a simple failure is not always easy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. Difficulty estimating the cost of forensic engineering investigation.\u00a0 Posted July 23, 2013<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/23\/difficulty-estimating-the-cost-of-forensic-engineering-investigation\/\">http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/23\/difficulty-estimating-the-cost-of-forensic-engineering-investigation\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>2. Chinese multi-story building failure<\/p>\n<p>YES, IT IS A 13 STORY\u00a0\u00a0 BUILDING\u00a0 LYING ON THE GROUND.<\/p>\n<p>Anybody who bought a condo here sure has a problem.<br \/>\nTalk about a collapsed market!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-1.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"217\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(1)\u00a0 An underground garage was being dug on the south side,\u00a0 to a depth of 4.6 meters.<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0 The excavated dirt was being piled up on the north side,\u00a0 to a height of 10 meters.<\/p>\n<p>(3)\u00a0 The building experienced uneven lateral pressure from south\u00a0 and north.<\/p>\n<p>(4)\u00a0 This resulted in a lateral pressure of 3,000 tonnes, which was\u00a0 greater than what the pilings could tolerate.<\/p>\n<p>Thus the building toppled over in the southerly direction.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-2.jpg\" width=\"298\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>*First, the apartment building was constructed.*<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-3.jpg\" width=\"298\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Then the plan called\u00a0 for an underground garage to be dug out.<br \/>\nThe\u00a0 excavated soil was piled up on the other side of the\u00a0 building.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-4.jpg\" width=\"298\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>*Heavy rains resulted in water seeping into the ground.*<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 5\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-5.jpg\" width=\"298\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The building began to tilt<br \/>\nThen it began to shift and the\u00a0 &#8220;hollow&#8221;\u00a0 concrete pilings were\u00a0 snapped due to the uneven lateral pressures<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 6\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-6.jpg\" width=\"298\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And thus was born the eighth wonder of the world.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 7\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-7.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If the buildings were closer together it would have resulted in a domino\u00a0 effect.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 8\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-8.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 9\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-9.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"197\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 10\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-10.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 11\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-11.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"218\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 12\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-12.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"218\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 13\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-13.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 14\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-14.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 15\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-15.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 16\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-16.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Collapsed 13 Story Buliding China 17\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hoax-slayer.com\/images\/collapsed-china-buliding-17.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" \/><\/p>\n<p>They built 13 stories on grade, with no basement, and tied it all down to hollow pilings with no rebar.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I blogged recently on the difficulty estimating the cost of forensic engineering investigation (Ref. 1).\u00a0 The item included a tabulated assessment of the ease or\u00a0difficulty estimating the cost of\u00a0a\u00a0possible 16 or more\u00a0steps in an investigation. You could be excused for &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/13\/fairly-easy-estimating-the-investigative-cost-of-a-catastrophic-engineering-failure\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1990,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}