For I-35, the NTSB report indicates that the design itself was undersized.
Designs need to be be accommodate for imperfect (and sometimes somewhat negligent) manufacturing, but these two examples aren't the best given the relative impact of flawed design, or design/change control process.
I suspect you if you really go through (https://www.osha.gov/construction/engineering) you'll find some good examples of construction time problems. By it's nature, the vast majority of these are going to be "during construction time", so it'll be biased. They're also typically smaller scale operations... but that's also reflective of reality. Most construction is not the scale of 100+ unit condo buildings.
From my skimming through it there's a pretty even mix of:
a) Designer dominant (note there are a significant number of so called "design-build" entities present as well).
b) Construction/contractor supervisor/company dominant
c) Construction/contractor crew on the ground dominant
The NTSB also has a set of building related investigations to read through. Unfortunately, I seem to be having problems figuring out their search.
https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/5s9mr...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/radiohead-stage-colla...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance
See Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents and The Next Disaster.
Knowing the extant nomenclature is useful in researching ideas / literature further. I'm often stymied because I don't know what things are called in certain domains. Psychology seems to be especially prone to this for me.
Obviously their "solution" was lethal. But the original presumably safe design seems impractical at best.
> Analysis of these two details revealed that the original design of the rod hanger connection would have supported 90 kN, only 60% of the 151 kN required by the Kansas City building code. Even if the details had not been modified the rod hanger connection would have violated building standards. As-built, however, the connection only supported 30% of the minimum load which explains why the walkways collapsed well below maximum load (Feld and Carper, 1997).
(my emphasis)
http://anengineersaspect.blogspot.com/2009/07/the-28th-anniv...
I worked in a gear shop for 5 years, yes, threads that long can be done. I suspect it might have been cheaper to get a rolled thread in that length, rather than a cut thread. Rolled thread is likely to be stronger, as it is formed, and not cut.
> Due to material changes during construction, the building as initially completed was structurally unsound.
The Hyatt walkway collapse was at a big dance party with a fair few people watching from above. Perhaps dancing?
I-35 bridge collapse was rush hour.
What's the peak here? Why 1am?
I wondered this too. Maybe contraction or rate of contraction?
Sun has gone down, outdoor temperature is dropping, max heat radiation out if the sky is clear, and everybody is home so A/C is on in all units.
Max rate of change of temperature is sunset and sunrise. Rate of contraction I'd expect similar?
I'm not sure AC would change the thermal mass of a building much. One cubic meter of air weights 1.2kg. Changing the concrete walls would be hard.
A drunk hitting a pole at speed in the carpark would fit perhaps. Drunkenness to an empty carpark would be high.
The building (and deck surface) will continue to radiate heat throughout the night on a clear night, especially with few obstructions like a waterfront building has. That's how crops can frost with airtemp > freezing, and why the guidance is to cover your plants. It's not to insulate them against convection.
Counterintuitively in this scenario, this effect is greatest when the wind is calm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling#Architecture
Incidentally, that chill is also why the 'low battery' alarms on smoke detectors tend to vexingly wake you up in the middle of the night, rather than conveniently running out in the 16 hours a day you're awake, which you might expect to happen twice as often. No, it's not just a bias that causes you to remember waking up to smoke alarm low battery chirps but not hearing them in the daytime, the electrochemical reaction in the batteries happens more readily at higher temperatures. It's a different chemistry, but the same reason a lead acid car battery has a hard time turning a starter in the dead of winter. The sensors in the smoke alarm always draw the same few microamps of current, but when it's coldest in the middle of the night, the battery is less able to meet the demand, and wakes you from your sleep.
For me a good story is when a friend built a house the design didn't fit the actual plot, so it was changed by the builders.
One of the final problems was an overhang on the upper roof went over the sky light.
Lessons -
Contrary to common beliefs land plots are not well known.
Engineers/Designers work off incomplete information.
Problems cascade to strange places.
Yes, and there's also a decent history of structural failure, or nearly so, from that particular habit.
The Hyatt walkway collapse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse...) is one of the better known - designed one way, built another so it would be easier and cheaper to build, and nobody thought through the changes in terms of how it impacted loading. Result? 114 dead.
The I-35 bridge collapse was another case of "various safety factors were eliminated until the safety factor was less than one." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge...
> On November 13, 2008, the NTSB released the findings of its investigation. The primary cause of the collapse was the undersized gusset plates, at 0.5 inches (13 mm) thick. Contributing to that design or construction error was the fact that 2 inches (51 mm) of concrete had been added to the road surface over the years, increasing the static load by 20%. Another factor was the extraordinary weight of construction equipment and material resting on the bridge just above its weakest point at the time of the collapse. That load was estimated at 578,000 pounds (262 tonnes), consisting of sand, water and vehicles. The NTSB determined that corrosion was not a significant contributor, but that inspectors did not routinely check that safety features were functional.[126]
There's a lot of redundancy built into modern construction, but if you remove some of it because it's cheaper to build, and other degrades over time from wear, well... at some point, there's nothing left.
It's going to be an interesting report to read, whatever the causes.