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Miami Beach, Champlain Towers South apartment building collapse 151

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I just saw this report that there's something like 50 people unaccounted for:

More than 50 unaccounted for in deadly Surfside, Florida, building collapse, official says


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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IRstuff, that's what I see as well. Sure looks like the failure started near the base. Punching shear down low is certainly plausible and would be abrupt and without warning.

I think in order for the roofing to have caused the collapse the weight of materials would need to buckle a column (or fail a transfer beam). Sure seems like it'd take an awful lot of load since it's 8 stories+.
 
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I just heard that it's now up to nearly 100 people unaccounted for.

When you consider that this collapse occurred at 1:30AM, if this apartment building was close to being fully occupied, that might be a very conservative estimate.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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Collapsed Miami condo had been sinking into Earth as early as the 1990s, researchers say
Link
 
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@bones206. That is under the section of the building that is still standing isn't it? Seems like incidental damage to me from being hit by falling debris.

Construction PE (KY)
Bridge Rehab, Coatings, Structural Repair
 
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According to this item, the building was in "OK shape" and the owners had just started a mandatory 40-year inspection and upgrade:

‘The building was in OK shape.’ The upscale condo near Miami Beach still collapsed


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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I'm curious why in the photos posted here we don't seem to see any rescue efforts despite reports of up to 99 people being missing? Anyone seen anything regarding this? Seems strange to me.



 
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bones206 said:
Closer view of punching shear failures:
Click to expand...
I spent more than a few minutes scrutinizing the rubble pile before I noticed the parking slab under the standing portion. There is not a lot of reinforcing in the top of that slab. Nor do I see any PT even though the slab is pretty thin. I think that may be why the rescue efforts are not extremely active and robust. If that parking slab did that under the entirety of the standing portion, I would be really concerned about the stability of that remaining portion.

Robert Hale, PE, SE
 
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Link

This is a pretty interesting tool to see the extents of the collapse.
 
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Here's an article without a paywall, about the sinking of the condo building. Measured in the 1990s as 2 mm/year. Apparently this was built on "reclaimed" (i.e. filled) wetlands.
Link
 
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I served with a USACOE USAR task force as a structural engineer for several years and although I did not respond to anything quite like this, I can tell you that it can take much longer than you might expect for a full USAR team to mobilize other than a small advance recon team. I recall that response time was one of the issues in the Elliot Lake Mall collapse in Ontario as well. Response times will vary from state to state and from team to team due to everything from long term state funding and local politics down to the diligence of the team itself, and so many other factors. I'll defer to others more familiar with TF3 and the other Florida TFs as to the circumstances surrounding readiness.

Also, even though a collapse like this is the worst case event that TFs train for, it is not something that many teams or engineers have ever worked and I'd think that the mobilization of teams and cranes and other logistics would take 24 hrs or more. This seem unacceptable on the surface however many teams do not have the support they need to be on continual standby and deploy within 4 hrs for an event like this.

Most of you already know but I will say that a pancake collapse like this is the worst possible scenario for survivors as there are so few voids and refuge spaces. Rescue will be slow and dangerous and will be frustrating to observers. It really makes your mind start to work in overdrive trying to conceive a system or technology to rapidly clear a debris field like this to reach survivors but the reality is that it is an unknown and unstable and unconsolidated mass which will be removed one piece at a time, and on that last point I am exaggerating less than I wish.
 
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Gary Slossberg said:
Another possibility, he said, is that the building's balconies may have had some construction issues. Many Miami-area buildings, he said, are built with concrete balconies that are "back-pitched," meaning they don't allow water to escape properly after it rains.
Click to expand...

seems like this could be a failure mode if water intrusion was occurring at every balcony

 
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OH said:
It looks like a pseudo pan joist system formed with insulation
Click to expand...

Those lines appear to be the tear lines where the bottom steel has ripped out of the concrete soffit. You can see those tear lines extend into the support wall.
 
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I did a detailed critique on the Engineering report for the Algo Mall... report was terrible, and apparently written by a PhD dude...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik
 
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BBC News 22:15 GMT+1 reporting 99 people missing.


Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.
 
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I noticed that the remaining part of the slab around the columns, which have punched through, is almost nothing:

Capture_bvs9hz.jpg


I would have expected the normal ~30 degree pyramid shape still attached to the column, unless this was lost among all the damage and debris?
 
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