Five years into the night of 18 January 1978, when the Civic Center had been exposed to its heaviest snow load since construction – heavy, but still only half of the design load. At 4:19 that morning, with the arena empty, the 1270t space frame collapsed in its entirety (see post cover mage). What was most disturbing, though, was that just six hours ago, more than 5,000 people were sitting below, watching a basketball game.
Category: Lessons from Failures
Picture the scenario, you’ve been tasked with the design of a complex large stadium roof and interestingly you’ve just received your new state of the art structural analysis software package. It’s exciting and going to be a perfect chance to demonstrate what can be accomplished if you have the right technology.