Hartford Civic Center Project: Structural Failure
Semester Project Part 1 – Structural Failure
Cm 220 – Introduction to Structural Design
Due Date 10/03/05
On January 18, 1978, just four years after completion, the space frame roof of the Hartford Civic Center came crashing down 83 feet to the floor after a snowstorm. The majority of the blame for this disaster was placed squarely on the shoulders of the design engineers and architects who overlooked vital miscalculations and failed to fix design flaws when they started to appear. (Kaminetzky 220)
In 1970, Vincent Kling agreed to be the architect for the project. He hired Fraoli, Blum, and Yesselman, Engineers for the structural design. Construction on the Hartford Civic Center project started in 1972 with the plan to build an arena …show more content…
The engineers depended on computer analysis to assess the safety of their design. The roof design was extremely susceptible to buckling a mode of failure not considered by the computer analysis and, therefore, left unaccounted for (Shepherd and Frost, 1995). Due to the construction manager’s refusal to hire a structural engineer for the purpose of inspection, no one realized the structural implications of the bowing structures. Finally, the Hartford Department of Licenses and Inspection did not require a peer review of the arena design. If a second opinion had been required the design deficiencies responsible for the arena’s collapse probably would have been discovered (Feld and Carper, …show more content…
This assignment was to investigate the constructor’s role so I want to talk about that a little bit. After learning about how this project failed I realized how important it is for construction managers to have a basic understanding of structural design. Had the construction manager on this Hartford Civic Center job understood the need for a structural engineer I might not be writing this paper. How he overlooked the deflection is shocking, that is a huge red light to get some structural help, especially on a job of this magnitude. In looking at the construction process a little broader than that of the construction manager; everyone involved, from the architect and engineer, to the sub-contractors doing the labor need to group together and work as a unit so failures like this don’t occur. It seems like there was a huge lack of communication between parties involved. Communication is a huge part of achieving and accomplishing a project successfully. This cannot happen or problems and failures like this will
Cm 220 – Introduction to Structural Design
Due Date 10/03/05
On January 18, 1978, just four years after completion, the space frame roof of the Hartford Civic Center came crashing down 83 feet to the floor after a snowstorm. The majority of the blame for this disaster was placed squarely on the shoulders of the design engineers and architects who overlooked vital miscalculations and failed to fix design flaws when they started to appear. (Kaminetzky 220)
In 1970, Vincent Kling agreed to be the architect for the project. He hired Fraoli, Blum, and Yesselman, Engineers for the structural design. Construction on the Hartford Civic Center project started in 1972 with the plan to build an arena …show more content…
The engineers depended on computer analysis to assess the safety of their design. The roof design was extremely susceptible to buckling a mode of failure not considered by the computer analysis and, therefore, left unaccounted for (Shepherd and Frost, 1995). Due to the construction manager’s refusal to hire a structural engineer for the purpose of inspection, no one realized the structural implications of the bowing structures. Finally, the Hartford Department of Licenses and Inspection did not require a peer review of the arena design. If a second opinion had been required the design deficiencies responsible for the arena’s collapse probably would have been discovered (Feld and Carper, …show more content…
This assignment was to investigate the constructor’s role so I want to talk about that a little bit. After learning about how this project failed I realized how important it is for construction managers to have a basic understanding of structural design. Had the construction manager on this Hartford Civic Center job understood the need for a structural engineer I might not be writing this paper. How he overlooked the deflection is shocking, that is a huge red light to get some structural help, especially on a job of this magnitude. In looking at the construction process a little broader than that of the construction manager; everyone involved, from the architect and engineer, to the sub-contractors doing the labor need to group together and work as a unit so failures like this don’t occur. It seems like there was a huge lack of communication between parties involved. Communication is a huge part of achieving and accomplishing a project successfully. This cannot happen or problems and failures like this will