5 Major Reasons for Collapsing Building

I am watching a program on discovery channel last night. That was on the 9/11 American Twin Tower collapse topic. How well designed and well constructed building can collapse in a moment. It was the shameful incident for mankind. It was the shame for us that how some terrorists destroy a modern technology and take many valuable lives.

That was the unexpected collapse of the tower. Beside this, there are many reasons for collapsing a building. If we analyze the reasons of collapsing building we can categories them 5 major heading. 1. Bad design: When an engineer designs the building he calculates various kind of loads, uses some co-efficient as per standard code and properties of building materials. If he makes any mistake in calculation or uses wrong co-efficient or takes inaccurate data of material properties then building can collapse.

2. Faulty Constructions: This is another major cause of collapsing building. If the building is constructed with low quality materials or isn’t constructed as per design specifications or not supervised properly or used unskilled construction professionals then the building can collapse. Faulty construction can also be the cause of collapsing another building beside it. the example of this kind of collapse is a 13 storey building which is located on lianhua road, minhang district in shanghai.

3. Foundation Failure: The building is well designed and perfectly constructed but what if it sits on a bad foundation. Bad foundations cause a building to sink or lean as the earth is displaced beneath it. This displacement of earth alters the load distribution of the building so the structure fails to meet the design specifications and building can collapse. There are many example of this kind of building collapse. One of the best known of them is the Leaning Tower of pisa.

4. Extra Ordinary Loads: These loads are often natural. Which are created due to earthquakes, hurricanes and heavy snowfall etc. If the structure unable to carry these kind of loads then the building can collapse.

5. Unexpected Failure Modes: Unexpected failure of structure is difficult to explain. One of best example for this kind of building collapse is world Trade Center.

There are many reasons for collapsing a building. Sometimes a building can collapse due to more than one reason.

Did you see any building collapsed near to you. Please share the location and reason of the building collapse in the comments.