13-storey building in Shanghai tips over

[duke o' york]

RIP Xiao.

Hopefully the architects who designed this deathtrap will be taken out and... given appropriate punishment.

[Space05us]

Perhaps they should have left that last floor off.

[Kuciwalker]

I didn't know buildings that tall could tip over. I thought they didn't have the structural integrity.

[Zevico]

That's what happens, when you contract a firm, who makes mostly dominoes.

The principle's the same.

[duke o' york]

I didn't know buildings that tall could tip over. I thought they didn't have the structural integrity.

Didn't major in engineering did you?

[Darius871]

I thought they didn't have the structural integrity.

They don't; hence the huge cracks across the entire exterior wall in KH's close-up. If the facade is tearing apart at the seams, the interior skeleton is probably in much worse shape.

[Darius871]

Oh, and *points to sig*

[DanS]

Those pilings sure are small. 10-15 feet is my guess.

Here in DC, we have a ton of those 13-storey steel-reinforced concrete buildings (height restrictions are ~ 13/14 storeys). New construction is required to have basement parking. And then pretty large pilings.

I checked the code for piling specs and it refers back to the construction engineer, so it appears that they are relying on the professional code for engineers rather than providing specific lengths.

[Soltz]

Going back to the first picture, it almost looks like the earth berm on the right slipped and pushed the building over.

[KrazyHorse]

Not to be a dick, but that appears to me to be a ridiculous assertion. In order to cause the building to fall in that way, an enormous torque about the long axis at ground level of the building would have been required.

1) The mass of the part of the berm which would reasonably be construed to have pushed against the building is not particularly high relative to the size of the building

2) The force it would have applied to the building would have been near its base. Force applied near the axis of rotation (again, ground level in this case) provides very little torque.

A couple of elementary calculations reveal that wind pressure even in moderate conditions would provide far higher torque than would a few tens of cubic meters of dirt pushing up against the base.

That's not to say that earth shifting could not have been the cause of the failure; for a building with as high a height/short axis ratio as that one, even relatively minor settling of earth on one side can lead to the building having a catastrophic lean. That soil seems particularly unsuited to tall buildings without a REAL foundation.

At a guess, I'd say that there was probably some issue with the leveling of the building, either due to shoddy measurements during construction or due to uneven settling. This may have been helped along by weather conditions at the time of collapse.

[Docfeelgood]

Not to be a dick, but that appears to me to be a ridiculous assertion. In order to cause the building to fall in that way, an enormous torque about the long axis at ground level of the building would have been required.

1) The mass of the part of the berm which would reasonably be construed to have pushed against the building is not particularly high relative to the size of the building

2) The force it would have applied to the building would have been near its base. Force applied near the axis of rotation (again, ground level in this case) provides very little torque.

A couple of elementary calculations reveal that wind pressure even in moderate conditions would provide far higher torque than would a few tens of cubic meters of dirt pushing up against the base.

That's not to say that earth shifting could not have been the cause of the failure; for a building with as high a height/short axis ratio as that one, even relatively minor settling of earth on one side can lead to the building having a catastrophic lean. That soil seems particularly unsuited to tall buildings without a REAL foundation.

At a guess, I'd say that there was probably some issue with the leveling of the building, either due to shoddy measurements during construction or due to uneven settling. This may have been helped along by weather conditions at the time of collapse.

Damn, this boy needs some..........

[SlowwHand]

You ain't wolfing. If ever there was a boy in need of a blow job, this is he.

[Soltz]

NP. We're all working from the same amount of information (almost none). My suspicion happens to be earth movement. It looks like the berm slipped on the surface but there could have also been some slipping under the building.

[DaShi]

At least they aren't allowed to sell anymore rooms from that building.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/28/content_11616206.htm

Shanghai home owners demand refunds after apartment building collapse


www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-28 23:31:53 Print

SHANGHAI, June 28 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 home owners in Shanghai have demanded refunds or compensation after a 13-storey apartment building under construction toppled on Saturday.

The building in the "Lotus Riverside" compound of Minhang District collapsed entirely at about 6 a.m., killing one worker who had gone into the building to fetch his tools.

Local authorities in Minhang have pledged to safeguard the legitimate interests and rights of the owners, although detailed plans are yet to come out.

The developer, Shanghai Meidu Real Estate, has been banned to sell the housing following the collapse. It had sold out 489 of 629 homes.


Editor: Yan