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... January 18,1978, Hartford, Connecticut, U. ... A – The space frame roof of the Hartford civic center collapsed under heavy snowfall onto rows of seats, which just 5 hours earlier were filled with 5000 fans watching a basketball game. The main responsiblity for the collapse of the structure, a mere 4 years after its construction, rests on the design engineers and architects who allowed computer analysis to rule over their own judgement and thus ignored warning signs and failed to fix flaws as they appeared. Although evidence of distress were seen and reported to the engineers during construction, nothing was done about it and the roof began to collapse the day it was completed. ...
BACKGROUND:
The Hartford civic center project was designed by Fraoli, Blum and Yesselman Engineers(FB&Y). ...
CAUSES OF ROOF COLLAPSE:
1. ... Thus when some of the members failed, it caused a chain reaction causing the collapse of the entire roof . ... However Loomis and Loomis, Inc, one of the investigators into the collapse believed that this was the main cause of the collapse. ... In the case of the Hartford Civic Center roof, the computer model could have very easily ‘understated the weight on the roof or oversimplified the means by which the rods are interconnected. ... After the collapse, when the right questions were asked explicitly, the computer itself answered the question of how the collapse occurred. ... Failure of the weld that held the score board
Hannskarl Bandel, a structural consultant, proposed the theory that since the bottom chords of the truss were connected to the main scoreboard, when the weld holding the scoreboard to the ceiling failed, 150,000 pounds of force was released, which when added to the already strained truss, due to the heavy snowfall, triggered the collapse.
Approximate Word count = 1163
Approximate Pages = 4.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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