From entire bridge collapses to a national tragedy, today we look at 11 Crazy Engineering
Fails!
11.
The Burj Khalifa Dubai seems to be a boom town in the last
decade, but there’s a bit of a seedy underside which many people don’t know about.
Behind the flashy cars, huge towers, and super rich residents, there are some serious problems
with some of the buildings which can only be the result of rushing to finish them and
impress the world.
A great example of this is the Burj Khalifa, a building which currently holds the title
of tallest in the world, and was intended to be an example of what the Middle East can
accomplish.
The building is too large for the city’s sewage system to adequately handle its needs,
so currently the waste produced by the 35,000 residents of the building is trucked out each
and every day - to the tune of about 7 tons per trip.
This is pretty crazy to consider, since the Burj Khalifa is supposed to be a shining beacon
of modern architectural accomplishment.
10.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge The curious case of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
is something that any structural engineer and architect would do well to read about.
Originally built in July of 1940, the bridge collapsed a mere 4 months later when winds
hitting the bridge caused it to twist and buckle in a way never seen before.
Though the engineers expected some flexing due to wind, they deemed the bridge safe to
use and proceeded to open it to the public.
On November 7th the winds caused the bridge to flex and twist so dramatically that it
tore itself apart.
Though no human life was lost in the collapse, a dog did perish as a result when its master’s
car was abandoned on the bridge.
The dog was too terrified to leave the vehicle and had to be left behind.
Footage from the disaster has become some of the most famous disaster footage of all
time, and it still teaches structural engineering students important lessons to this day.
9.
Walt Disney Concert Hall The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles,
California, was designed by Frank Gehry in 1991 and opened in 2003.
The project started in 1987 with a $50 million dollar donation by Lillian Disney, the widow
of Walt Disney.
All told the project cost an estimated $274 million to complete.
While the building was definitely beautiful, an unfortunate side effect of its polished
metal skin was that it would reflect the sunlight to such an insane degree that the glare was
blinding.
The solution was as costly as it was sad - for $180,000, the exterior of the building was
sandblasted in the area which was producing the glare.
This removed the shiny exterior in that area and greatly reduced the glare, which was apparently
so excessive that it drew comparisons to tanning mirrors and neighborhood residents complained
of increased temperatures.
8.
The Titanic Few of man’s achievements speak of the result
of hubris better than the story of the RMS Titanic.
It’s likely you already know the overarching story of what happened, but what you may not
know is the series of failures which led to the tremendous loss of life involved in the
sinking of the ship.
Firstly, the ship was touted as “unsinkable”, and this was mainly due to a new system of
16 separate watertight compartments which were supposed to be able to seal off from
one another instantly in the event of a failure.
Additionally the ship carried 20 lifeboats which each carried between 40 and 47 people.
These were meant to be able to spirit away the ship’s passengers in the event of a
true disaster.
However, not only did the bulkhead system fail to stop the ship from flooding with water,
but there were not enough boats to save all of the passengers.
Additionally, since the ship was seen as unsinkable, the crew was not fully trained in evacuation
procedures.
7.
Flying Car Back in the ‘70s, the dream of the flying
car we were promised in the Jetsons was still alive and well.
This was also a time of huge boom in the auto industry, and for the first time in, well,
ever, virtually everyone was able to afford a car.
The end result was a whole lot of competition to get the first flying car in the air, since
that was seen at the time as the next big step in the American dream.
Enter the Mizar, which was a strange convertible craft which could be used both as an airplane
and a car.
The design was created by Henry Smolinski and was based around the Ford Pinto (which
of course was already its own disaster waiting to happen).
The Mizar’s aircraft components could be quickly added onto or removed from the Pinto
to convert it to either of its modes.
The airplane attachment had its own engine, and this would be used in tandem with the
car’s engine to achieve liftoff.
While the design seemed sound, the real world tests indicated disaster straight from the
start.
Struts and mounting attachments failed, and turning the aircraft could put enough stress
on the machine to rip the wings off.
After making some modifications, Smolinski and business partner Hal Blake took the plane
up...and it ripped itself apart and crashed, killing both men instantly.
6.
Shanghai Building Collapse It’s not exactly rare for a building to
collapse.
However, it’s pretty strange for a building to fall over in one piece.
That’s what happened to a 13-story apartment building in Shanghai, China in 2009 though,
and it was all the result of shoddy engineering.
The complex in which the building was located consisted of a total of 11 similar structures,
and although it wasn’t open to the public yet, close to 500 of the units had already
been sold.
The construction practices and regulations in China are known to be less sophisticated
and rigorous than in other parts of the developed world, and this incident is a good indication
of how that can go wrong.
Buyers immediately started requesting their money back, and confidence in the project
as a whole pretty much dropped to rock bottom...no pun intended.
5.
Tropicana Field Fail Sometimes construction projects seemed doomed
from the beginning.
This is what many have thought about the Tampa Bay Rays Tropicana Field in Florida since
its construction, since it has been the source of more than one strange and dangerous incident.
During a game in 2011, shards of glass fell down onto areas of the field after a baseball
hit a light bulb and shattered it.
The problem with the field is that there are catwalks which hang much lower than they should
for a baseball field running the circumference of the ceiling, and the light fixtures also
hang lower than would be ideal.
This has led to many balls colliding with various parts of the structure, and occasionally
has caused the lights to break and rain glass down on teams and paying customers.
4.
John Hancock Tower If you’re a fan of the Final Destination
movies, you’ll likely remember the scene where a person on the sidewalk below a large
skyscraper is crushed by a falling glass panel.
Well, this actually happened...sort of.
The John Hancock Tower in Boston was built between 1968 and 1976 and was the first to
use a certain type of “innovative” blue reflective glass panel for the building’s
exterior.
This gave it an iconic look, but also came with a rather unpleasant side effect.
Some of these panels had a nasty habit of coming loose when the winds exceeded 45 miles
per hour, and would crash to the ground after falling hundreds of feet in some cases.
Police actually had to close surrounding streets when the winds reached 45mph.
Plywood was known to adorn the spots where glass panes used to be, and it was often referred
to as "Plywood Ranch", "Plywood Palace", and “the world’s tallest plywood building”
during this time.
All 10,344 glass panels were eventually replaced.
3.
Citigroup Center When you’re given the opportunity to design
a building which will adorn the New York City skyline, it seems obvious that you would put
everything you have into it.
You’d do your best to think of everything because in many cases this will end up being
the biggest project of your career.
However some people seem to approach these kinds of things in a much more relaxed manner,
and that nearly led to catastrophic disaster in the case of structural engineer William
LeMessurier and his work on the Citigroup Center building.
After doing the bare minimum amount of work to ensure that the building could handle wind
load according to NYC law, LeMessurier patted himself on the back for a job well done.
However, after the building was completed, mistakes in the math were pointed out to the
engineer and his firm, and it was discovered that the building was far from structurally
sound.
Severe enough winds on one side of the building would drastically increase the load on the
rest of the building, and were likely to bring it down.
For more than three months, teams worked through the night to reinforce the building and ensure
that it wouldn’t come down, and at one point emergency evacuation procedures were drawn
up not just for the building itself, but for the neighborhood in which it was situated.
Luckily the reinforcements were successful, but the company kept the initial failure secret
for more than 20 years afterward.
2.
The Chernobyl Disaster It’s hard to put together a list of engineering
fails without including the most disastrous event in the history of nuclear power - the
Chernobyl accident.
This event is so prolific that it’s largely considered to be the yardstick against which
similar disasters are measured to this day, and it has caused a worldwide skepticism of
nuclear power which is still in effect now.
The plant was originally finished in 1977, and the disaster took place just about a decade
later in 1986.
During a test on the plant’s ability to keep coolant pumps running during a loss of
power, safety systems which would have been running were turned off.
The reactor was then taken down to about 25% of its capacity, but in actuality the reactor
fell below 1% of its output potential.
An attempt was made to slowly raise the power levels back up, but a surge caused a chain
reaction which led to the violent explosion and the rupture of the reactor’s fuel sources.
The fires lasted for more than 10 days, and the cleanup effort led to serious health issues
for hundreds of people and at least 31 lives were lost.
The site is still abandoned to this day, and background radiation levels continue to be
much higher than they should be.
1.
Challenger Space Shuttle Since the 1960s, the United States space program
has been a crowning jewel in the portfolio of the nation - a shining example of what
American innovation can accomplish.
However, not everything always goes as smoothly as the moon landing, and mistakes do happen.
Unfortunately on January 28th, 1986, those mistakes cascaded to one of the largest disasters
in the history of engineering and space travel as a whole, when the Challenger Space Shuttle
exploded as it attempted to exit the atmosphere.
The entire crew of seven was lost.
What’s worse, the disaster also took the life of a teacher named Christa McAuliffe,
who was aboard the shuttle as the inaugural flight of the Teachers in Space program.
The accident was the result of an O-ring that was used to seal a joint not being able to
withstand the unusually cold temperatures of the launch day.
The temperatures in Cape Canaveral, Florida that day were below freezing.
Bob Ebeling, an engineer who worked on the project, had tried to get NASA to listen to
him about the possibility of the rings failing.
Unbelievably, he told his wife the night before that it was "going to blow up".
This incident shook the faith of the American people in what had, up until that point, been
seen as an infallible part of our culture.
After the tragedy no other teachers were sent into space as part of the Teachers in Space
program and the program was cancelled in 1990