Miami building collapse

My guess... Corroded rebar from salt water leading to deterioration of concrete frame, no maintenance or inspections, or possibly recommendations ignored.

I've inspected first hand building along the south coast and seen what alt water does to older rc frames. So much spalling and breakout. It can be fixed though if caught early.
 
DB_SamX said:
My guess... Corroded rebar from salt water leading to deterioration of concrete frame, no maintenance or inspections, or possibly recommendations ignored.

I've inspected first hand building along the south coast and seen what alt water does to older rc frames. So much spalling and breakout. It can be fixed though if caught early.
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interesting point, that is the side of the building facing the ocean. Although reports say there were no internal signs of issues, like cracks etc. but then again how many times do you see/hear reports like this by owners etc to avoid any liability.
 
VaderDSL said:
interesting point, that is the side of the building facing the ocean. Although reports say there were no internal signs of issues, like cracks etc. but then again how many times do you see/hear reports like this by owners etc to avoid any liability.
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You would definitely see it IF exposed. If plastered, suspended ceilings, etc then could have gone unnoticed but then again that's why we recommend 5 yearly inspections to clients we work with on the south coast.
 
I'm reminded of a partial building collapse in England a while ago. Part of a block of flats collapsed completely and the rest was untouched. There were serious flaws in the building but no external sign of them. I don't remember the name, so I'll look it up...Ronan Point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point

Failure on one floor, the floors above are deprived of necessary support and drop down, the sudden extreme load collapses the floor below the initial failure, drop, collapse, drop, collapse...the whole lot's gone in seconds. Horrifying and leaves the rest of the building standing. Also explains the reports of "sounded like an explosion" - the upper floors hitting the lower floors would make a noise so loud many people who heard it would think of an explosion.
 
Angilion said:
I'm reminded of a partial building collapse in England a while ago. Part of a block of flats collapsed completely and the rest was untouched. There were serious flaws in the building but no external sign of them. I don't remember the name, so I'll look it up...Ronan Point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point

Failure on one floor, the floors above are deprived of necessary support and drop down, the sudden extreme load collapses the floor below the initial failure, drop, collapse, drop, collapse...the whole lot's gone in seconds. Horrifying and leaves the rest of the building standing. Also explains the reports of "sounded like an explosion" - the upper floors hitting the lower floors would make a noise so loud many people who heard it would think of an explosion.
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That was the incident that led to the banning of high alumina cement for fast high strength gain in some types of construction, consideration of progressive collapse criteria in buildings and methods of construction for precast system built structures. An important collapse study.
Likewise the twin towers collapse had similarities, overloading of floors leading to loading floor below etc, etc.
 
Water does that to foundations (leaking pool). Reduces pile capacity and soil bearing resistance.
 
Looks like they may close the Champlain Towers North.

"It was built at the same time with the same designer, so they are looking at working with them, and I know they are considering potentially evacuating them, but that’s something that ultimately the mayor is going to have to make the call on," DeSantis said during a Saturday morning news conference in Surfside, east of Miami."
 
Angilion said:
I'm reminded of a partial building collapse in England a while ago. Part of a block of flats collapsed completely and the rest was untouched. There were serious flaws in the building but no external sign of them. I don't remember the name, so I'll look it up...Ronan Point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point

Failure on one floor, the floors above are deprived of necessary support and drop down, the sudden extreme load collapses the floor below the initial failure, drop, collapse, drop, collapse...the whole lot's gone in seconds. Horrifying and leaves the rest of the building standing. Also explains the reports of "sounded like an explosion" - the upper floors hitting the lower floors would make a noise so loud many people who heard it would think of an explosion.
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It "sounded like an explosion" because it was an explosion. To be more precise, the initial cause of the Ronan Point collapse was a gas explosion in a flat on the 18th floor. Apart from a complete change in the way that that high rise buildings were built in the UK, Ronan Point had a major influence on Gas Regulation in the UK as well.
It wasn't until after Ronan Point and the following enquiry that "Corgi" was formed to oversee all Gas Regulation in the UK. Up to that point Gas installation used to be a "suck it and see" job that had no formal regulation at all.
 
A study from researchers at Florida International University published last year found that the building had been sinking at a rate of two millimetres per year in the 1990s, which may have affected the building structurally.

But the author has cautioned that the study was just a snapshot in time. The building was constructed on reclaimed wetland, which experts say is always of concern as the land underneath can compact over time, leading to shifts.

On the sinking, the author of the study, Prof Shimon Wdowinski, told the Miami Herald newspaper: "We've seen much higher than that, but it stood out because most of the area was stable and showed no subsidence."
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Why was nothing done before this? Were the residents tenants? Owner occupiers? Why didn't the local authority force the works to take place?
 
I watched a video of the collapse the other day. It seems the centre part collapsed first, and then about 5 seconds later one of the side parts collapsed too.

It must have been terrifying for the second collapse as they would have had 5 seconds of wondering what that loud sound was, and then suddenly their part of the building collapses too.

Very sad for everyone involved.
 
kitfit1 said:
It "sounded like an explosion" because it was an explosion. To be more precise, the initial cause of the Ronan Point collapse was a gas explosion in a flat on the 18th floor. Apart from a complete change in the way that that high rise buildings were built in the UK, Ronan Point had a major influence on Gas Regulation in the UK as well.
It wasn't until after Ronan Point and the following enquiry that "Corgi" was formed to oversee all Gas Regulation in the UK. Up to that point Gas installation used to be a "suck it and see" job that had no formal regulation at all.
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In the case of this building in Miami, there were reports of people saying they heard a noise that they said sounded like an explosion. I think that doesn't necessarily mean there was an explosion. There was in Ronan Point and probably in some other examples of multi-storey buildings collapsing, but not all of them. The noise of the collapse itself would make a noise so loud that many people who heard it would think of an explosion.

The explosion in Ronan Point was so minor that it didn't even injure the person in the room where the explosion occured. I doubt if it would have been anywhere near as loud as the collapse itself. It was a "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of cause. The flaws in the building were so bad that wind could have done the same thing.
 
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