In 1975, the Hartford Civic Center had officially opened in Hartford, Connecticut. With a seating capacity of 12,500 people, this new arena was designed to help revitalize the downtown area. Unfortunately, poor design planning and construction resulted in a structural failure that could have destroyed any hope of revitalizing Hartford.
On the early morning of January 18, 1978, the Hartford Civic Center arena roof completely collapsed under the weight of a heavy snowfall and fell over 80 feet to the arena floor. Had this collapse happened only hours earlier during a basketball game, thousands of innocent people would have either died or suffered serious injury. The design specifications for the roof demonstrated that it should withstand a significant amount of weight caused by snow and ice, yet the roof had collapsed from
…show more content…
As the roof frame construction was in process, an inspection agency arrived on-site to evaluate the project. Following inspection, the agency notified the engineers of excessive deflections at several nodes (Martin 2). Despite this information, the project continued without alteration and the completed roof frame was lifted onto the building. During the lifting process, the observed deflection was found to be twice the deflection value calculated using the computer analysis. Nevertheless, the engineers continued with the project, believing that this variation was of little concern. As subcontractors attempted to move forward and install roof panels, it was found that the excessive deflection prevented panels from fitting properly. While a subcontractor notified others of this problem, the project manager felt little concern and simply directed the subcontractors to make adjustments in order to complete installation. Countless red flags were raised throughout this project, yet the engineers dismissed each concern, placing their trust in the initial computer
Steven Hermosillo Professor Wallace Fire Tech 105 15 November 2015 Silver Bridge Collapse According to Wikipedia, Forty-six people were killed in the silver-bridge collapse and another nine people were injured. “The Silver Bridge was an eye-bar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge connected Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, over the Ohio River” (Wikipedia). This was a highly used bridge serving thousands of cars a day before the collapse.
The multi-purpose arena that I have chosen to evaluate is Boston University’s Agganis Arena. This arena is considered to be the next generation of Boston sports and entertainment by incorporating the latest multimedia technologies and providing the finest possible sight lines and views of the action. The arena is located within Boston University's new $225 million John Hancock Student Village, a 10-acre hub of activity designed to be the thriving center of student life and athletics, Agganis Arena is a state-of-the-art, multipurpose sports and entertainment center scheduled to open in January 2005. A 290,000-square-foot premier venue with 6,300 seats for hockey and ice shows, the Arena is expandable to over 7,200 seats for concerts, sporting events, and family shows.
The Greenhill Community Center was a multi-service center in Coastal City. Its main purpose was to provide human service programs for various factors throughout life with an intergenerational setting. Some of these included day care, elder programs, music classes, and afterschool programs. It was founded in 1982 and was set up in an old schoolhouse. In short, this community center could use some help.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is split into three sections. In the first section, Bierce describes in detail the situation, a youn...
There have been suspicions surrounding how the towers collapsed into dust. Some say it was a “pancake” collapse. According to Engineers, a pancake collapse or progressive collapse is when the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bears down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor and unable to absorb the energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the ...
One thing a sports arena is not originally built for is to survive a category five hurricane. The Superdome, built to house the famous NFL Saints, was never intended to become a “refuge of last resort” and was never designed, nor tested for such an event. It was announced the dome could support winds up to 200mph but this claim was later debunked when CNN reported no engineering study had ever been done to prove the accusation. Lies regarding the structural standing of a refugee building during a serious hurricane is life threatening, dangerous and should send up dozens of red flags as to why it was ...
I wanted to let you know we are going to get someone out there by the beginning of next week if not sooner weather permitting. To be clear, we are going to come out to attempt to remedy the issue that you have brought to our attention. Being that the issue you have brought up to us seems to be an issue that was already existing in the same location, it seems to us that the true problem may be higher up on the shingle roof portion, not the metal roof portion we were contracted for. After reviewing the original documents and notes to production, they state that, as per customer we are not to replace the upper shingle roof portion due to cost and that you thought the shingles were not that old. It also stated not to do the
The practice of colonialism by several nations led to the possession and exploitation of weaker countries. It resulted in the strengthening of the mother country and oppression of the indigenous people of the colonies (Nowell, 2013). Colonial cities were deliberately developed within colonial societies in order to centralize political and economic control. Essentially, colonial cities facilitated the consolidation and exportation of wealth to the dominating nation (The Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014).
Just imagine this rather frightening catastrophic rendition of events! A mile-high sheet of glacial ice again descends from the Arctic Circle onto the United States and soon every skyscraper in Seattle, Chicago and New York City is violently crushed and devastated during a 21st century three hundred and first cataclysmic ice invasion.
The non-profit organization that I researched is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. They have spent the last 40 years educating people who live near the Chesapeake Bay or near one of its tributaries on things that need to be done in order to create a safe habitat for the aquatic and terrestrial life living near these waters and creating healthier, cleaner water within the bay.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is perhaps the most notorious failure in the world of engineering. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 just months after its opening on July 1, 1940. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff and at its time it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of over half a mile long. The bridge was very narrow and sleek giving it a look of grace, but this design made it very flexible in the wind. Nicknamed the "Galloping Gertie," because of its undulating behavior, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge drew the attention of motorists seeking a cheap thrill. Drivers felt that they were driving on a roller coaster, as they would disappear from sight in the trough of the wave. On the last day of the bridge's existence it gave fair warning that its destruction was eminent. Not only did it oscillate up and down, but twisted side to side in a cork screw motion. After hours of this violent motion with wind speeds reaching forty and fifty miles per hour, the bridge collapsed. With such a catastrophic failure, many people ask why such an apparently well thought out plan could have failed so badly?(This rhetorical question clearly sets up a position of inquiry-which iniates all research.) The reason for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still controversial, but three theories reveal the basis of an engineering explanation. (Jason then directly asserts what he found to be a possible answer to his question.)
January 12, 1888, a blizzard covered the northwest part of North America that claimed many lives. This blizzard was considered to be the worst blizzard of all time, and was dubbed the “the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard”, for claiming the lives of so many school children on their way home. The death toll of this murderous blizzard rose, because of lack of preparation and being uninformed. During this time, many farmers and families were unprepared to survive a blizzard of this magnitude, by the lack of clothing they wore. Forecasters were not as accurate enough to inform people on the weather conditions. Also, shelter was a major factor in protecting themselves from the winter storms, but the shelter was not stable
• Loss of life and injuries On the night of collapse which is on July 17, 1981, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri was hosting a tea dance in the atrium lobby. During the incident, approximately 1600 people are gathered in the atrium to participate in a tea dance (NASA, 2008) .Many people during the tea dance are dancing and standing on the suspended walkways. The second and fourth floor is the two connected walkways whereas the fourth floor bridge was suspended directly over the second-floor bridge (Brady, 2015).Suddenly at 7.05 pm, the connection of the two suspended floor failed, and the fourth-floor walkway collapsed onto the second-floor walkway and both of this walkways began to fall to the lobby floor.
The collapse of the Tay bridge has interested engineers, scientists and members of the public for decades. There have been many enquiries into the collapse and theories proposed as to why it happened. For hours after the disaster, people were left confused and perplexed about the facts concerning what they had observed. It was unclear whether the train, and the passengers, had survived the storm and furthermore there was the shock of how such a robust and recently built bridge had actually collapsed.. Earlier in the day, at 1.15pm, the Dundee, a ferry boat, was taken across the waters. The captain noted that the weather was mild and that the waters were calm.
Works Cited Journal articles: • Lane, Thomas. “Crazy Angles, Soaring Steel.” Building vol. 274 no. 8588 (28) 2009, July 17, pp. 40-46.