Contenido Forensic Engineering: Informing the Future with Lessons from the Past

Forensic Engineering: Informing the Future with Lessons from the Past is the published proceedings from the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Fifth International Conference on Forensic Engineering, held in London on 16-17 April 2013.

The conference maintained a 150 year tradition pioneered by Telford, Brunel and Stephenson, where lessons learned from failures lead to the development of improved design, construction and management practice.

Managing assets is particularly important in a difficult economic climate and so understanding where things have gone wrong in the past is vital. The papers in this book focus on the investigation of the fundamental causes of failure during the life of buildings, tunnels, bridges and foundations, which is crucial for optimising the construction and management of the built environment to deliver a better and more sustainable infrastructure.

Case studies include:

    2009 Cumbrian floods
    The Japanese tsunami and lessons learned from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake
    The rebuilding of Woolwich Arsenal Clock Tower
    The collapse of the 1-35 W Mississippi River Bridge.

With more than 40 contributors, spread across 16 countries and six continents, this is an essential text, providing valuable lessons for owners, managers, developers and all those seeking to learn from the past to best manage their assets.

Contents

Opening Plenary Papers

    Rewards of failure – Changes in codes, standards and practices resulting from structural failures
    Evolution of design and construction, guided by failures
    Learning from Structural Failure: The Challenges and Opportunities
    Forensic investigation and performance analysis for bridges under extreme natural hazards
    Investigation into highway bridge damage and failures during the November 2009 Cumbria flood event
    New York City 51st Street tower crane collapse investigation

Forensic Investigation Case Studies - Bridges

    Railway bridge failure during flood in the UK & Ireland: Learning from the past
    Tamar Bridge - Investigation of surfacing defects, design and specification
    Assessing the risk to railway structures from train impact
    Calculating collapse: Analytical approaches for investigating the cause of the I-35 West Bridge failure
    Assessment and repair of a fire-damaged pre-stressed concrete bridge
    The role of monitoring in diagnosis of bridge faults

Building Failures and Investigation

    Tsunami casualty mitigation through vertical evacuation buildings: a case study from the March 11th 2011 Tohoku earthquake
    Bond Street station upgrade: The replacement of escalator 1 and 2
    Latent building facade failures
    Remote investigation of blast effects on buildings
    Food market northern from Montreal - Investigation after a failure of the roof under the snow load

Case Studies - Ground and below Ground Works

    Investigation of collapse of slurry trench in underground metro construction
    Failure cost analysis of 50 deep excavations in The Netherlands
    Impact of adjacent construction on existing pile foundations

Temporary Structures

    Bragg revisited: Keeping UK’s temporary works safe in the dawning Eurocode era
    Partial collapse of bridge falsework and salvage technique
    Dreamspace: dreams turned into nightmares, a case study

Education and Continuing Professional Development in Forensic Engineering

    Forensic engineering education workshops: U.S. and international experiences
    Implementation and assessment of failure case studies in the engineering curriculum
    Failure case databases for teaching risk in civil engineering
    Structural incidents in The Netherlands: A comparison of three databases

Legal, Contract and Learning

    Systemic analysis of risks in project management and safety issues
    All the world’s a stage - Reflections on a forensic engineering moot court experience
    The role of engineers in dispute resolution and litigation
    The ‘‘Standard of Care’’ and negligence of the forensic engineer
    Expert witness training - the Practitioner’s Viewpoint
    Forensic engineering applied to contract management in the construction industry
    Prevention is better . . . . . . . how insurers try to reduce failures
    Appropriateness of Current Regulatory Requirements for Ensuring the Robustness of
    Precast Building Typologies

Materials Failures and Investigation

    Lessons learned from structures damaged by delayed ettringite formation and the French prevention strategy
    Concrete Preservation Plan for Reinforced Concrete University Campus Buildings
    Gorey Pierhead Jersey, Investigations and assessment of current structural integrity
    Investigation of the Electrostatic Precipitator Hoppers Detachment Incident at a coal fired power station in Hong Kong

Closing Plenary Papers

    Post-Tensioned Structures – Improved Standards Based On Lessons Learnt
    Learning from confidential reporting
    Rebuilding Woolwich Arsenal Clock Tower