The Champlain Towers South design violated building codes at the time of original construction. On the northern side, under the portion of the tower that collapsed, the columns were too narrow to accommodate all of the vertical and horizontal rebar called for in the plans while maintaining clearance required by the code. The pool deck had narrow columns and inadequate load bearing capacity, engineers consulted by the Herald found. Only columns beneath the surviving structure were fully compliant — Miami Herald
A team consisting of Sarah Blaskey, Aaron Leibowitz and Ben Conarck worked with four engineers and a general contractor to analyze the "Anatomy of Collapse" and explain the failure of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, FL. One key factor in the collapse appears to have been "punching shear" failure in the first-floor slab.
2 Comments
I've had a couple of projects where something similar was caught in the first stages of shop drawings - engineer calls for a certain size and # of mats of rebar within a certain footing, wall or column thickness, with cover and rebar tying handled by general notes.
Fabricator puts all that info together and says, "it doesn't all fit."
Column/ wall either gets fatter or rebar spec is revisited.
Unfortunately that Herald link is paywalled.
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