Failure of Civil Structures

-a case study of beam failure

By,
Michael Joseph (120040097)
Hardik Gupta (120040117)
Division-2 ( 3
rd
year Civil Engineering)

A beam is
a structural element which is primarily
capable of withstanding load by
resisting bending. The beam/girder
gives horizontal support to the
structure. But there are situations
where the assumptions, of its load
bearing capacity, go wrong which
results in the failure of the structure.
The Problem Burnaby Supermarket Construction Failure
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
Figure: A bridge girder failure
A beam failure rattles the support of the slab it
holds which may result in the collapse of the whole roof to the floor
since the vertical loads will no longer be transferred through the
beams to the columns.
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The Problem Burnaby Supermarket
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
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Figure: Failure
possibilities in a
beam
As can be seen from the figure,
the beam has many critical points for its
failure which can happen due to excessive
compression, tension or shear force.
Figure: Shear failure near the ends
Figure: Tension/Compression failure
Figure: Beam
cross-section
Construction Failure
The Problem Burnaby Supermarket
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
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Figure: Parking roof collapse due to beam failure
On April 23, 1988 the
rooftop parking deck of a supermarket
collapsed at Station Square in
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Five minutes after the opening
ceremony, four bays of the roof
structure came plummeting to the
ground.
The collapse was
attributed to a failure in the beam and
beam-column assembly. At such a
location, the beam experiences
negative bending. There were a
number of technical and procedural
errors or that led to the collapse of the
roof structure. The Commissioner's
report states that the principle causes
of failure were an undersized steel
beam and inadequate buckling
resistance of the beam compression
flange.
Figure: Bending moment diagram for the beam
Construction Failure
The Problem Burnaby Supermarket Construction Failure
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
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In this case, the
supporting cold-formed steel beams
collapsed during the construction. The
collapse occurred while concrete was
being placed onto steel decking on the
second floor of the structure. The steel
beams, without shoring, supported the
steel decking. Documents of American
Iron and Steel Institute indicated that
the beams were overstressed for
construction loads. After the collapse,
part of the structure was rebuilt using
thicker beams. For the reconstruction,
the slab was shored. Such engineering
designs should take care to obtain the
proper codes and design documents.
Figure: Bending moment diagram for the beam
Figure: Beam failure
The Problem Burnaby Supermarket
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
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Construction Failure
The current code of practice for beam construction has
been specified in BS 5950 called "Structural Use of Steelwork in Building". This
code gives specific guidance on the strength and stiffness of steel structures
for buildings to allow numerical calculations to be made. Beam capacity is
checked by comparing the ultimate strength with factored loadings. It checks
the strength of a structure by ensuring ultimate strength is not less than
working load x load factor.
Cross sections, employed for beams, are usually open
sections in which material is distributed in the flanges, i.e. away from their
centroids, to improve their resistance to in-plane bending stresses. Open
sections are also convenient to connect beams to adjacent members. In the
ideal case, where the beams are restrained laterally, their bending strength
about the major axis forms the principal design consideration. Though they
possess high major axis bending strength, they are relatively weak in their
minor axis bending and twisting.
Surfaced plates have been developed for use in steel-
concrete-steel double-skin beam elements, which help in providing higher
resistance to a structure. Apart from these design considerations one can
always have a thicker beam with higher area in order to increase its strength.
The Problem Burnaby Supermarket
Tackling the situation Impacts of Improvement
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Construction Failure
Beam is one of
the most important part of
any civil structure. An
increase in the strength of
the beam, only helps the
structure in sustaining a
higher amount of load,
thus providing with a
higher safety index for the
design.