A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.

On Nov 6, 3:02*pm, jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Man, those Chinese are something! I've heard of tilt-up construction,
but never tilting up the entire building after it's been completed!
What will they think of next...

R

On 11/6/2009 1:22 PM RicodJour spake thus:

On Nov 6, 3:02 pm, jeff_wisnia wrote:

A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Man, those Chinese are something! I've heard of tilt-up construction,
but never tilting up the entire building after it's been completed!
What will they think of next...

Those pilings sticking out the bottom make it look more like the
proverbial "tits up".


--
Who needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress
blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom?

- harvested from Usenet

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

Those pilings look awfully flimsy, no wonder they snapped off, there was
hardly any re-rods and they were just hollow tubes, not much more than a
concrete drain pipe.

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Holy mackerel, I don't feel so bad about my shoddy workmanship now!

Jon

"jeff_wisnia" wrote in message
eonecommunications...
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Amazing that the structure remained as intact as it did. The foundation was
weak, but the building sure wasn't. Lots of the windowpanes weren't even
broken. It looked so undamaged that I thought, after seeing just the first
photo, that it was a fake. Obviously not.

--
Bobby G.

Robert Green wrote:
"jeff_wisnia" wrote in message
eonecommunications...
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Amazing that the structure remained as intact as it did. The foundation was
weak, but the building sure wasn't. Lots of the windowpanes weren't even
broken. It looked so undamaged that I thought, after seeing just the first
photo, that it was a fake. Obviously not.

--
Bobby G.

On Nov 6, 4:20*pm, mike wrote:
Robert Green wrote:
"jeff_wisnia" wrote in message
ceonecommunications...
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Amazing that the structure remained as intact as it did. *The foundation was
weak, but the building sure wasn't. *Lots of the windowpanes weren't even
broken. *It looked so undamaged that I thought, after seeing just the first
photo, that it was a fake. *Obviously not.

--
Bobby G.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sorry. I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

"mike" wrote in message
...

Sorry. I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the energy is
applied all at once.

--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.

On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:02:17 -0500, jeff_wisnia
wrote:

A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

This is actually a better arrangement, because it puts more people on
the ground floor, and doesn't rely so much on elevators.

"jeff_wisnia" wrote in message
eonecommunications...
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse and
diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.


And to think, it was undoubtedly built using Chinese dry wall.

Charlie

"mm" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:02:17 -0500, jeff_wisnia
wrote:

A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

This is actually a better arrangement, because it puts more people on
the ground floor, and doesn't rely so much on elevators.

If that had happened in the US with all the homeless people we now have, you
can be sure that if it wasn't demolished quickly, it would soon be occupied,
even in the horizontal state.

--
Bobby G.

"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message
...

"mike" wrote in message
...

Sorry. I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the
buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to
snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the energy
is
applied all at once.

Yeah but . . . (-: Many of the windows didn't even break. That's just
bizarre. I wonder what the "rate of descent" was. I guess if it tipped over
gradually enough there wasn't a big slam at the end, but still, it's a
pretty amazing site. Or sight. Or even cite. Thanks for posting that,
Jeff.

I guess I am used to seeing collapsed buildings in the aftermath of
earthquakes where the buildings fall because they are shaken apart. The
Shanghai building didn't have to endure any pre-collapse shaking and I am
betting the ground gave way slowly and the pilings appear to have bent
before they broke, asborbing both time and energy and moderating the forces
on the building. Still, what a ride that must have been. Sounds like a
project for Disney World. Here are some random EQ photos, FWIW:

http://images.google.com/images?q=japanese+earthquakes

--
Bobby G.

On Nov 6, 2:02*pm, jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.

CSBDS Chinesee Sick Building Drywall Sympton, corrosive Drywall fumes
corroded the rebar. Was it even attatched to the foundation? The break
looks to clean.

In article
communications,
jeff_wisnia wrote:

A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

Cool, thanks, Jeff. I remember seeing some of those pics before, but not
that large and not that many. Did you translate the Chinese? Are you
going to leave that on your site indefinitely? If so I'll bookmark it.

Smitty Two wrote:
In article
communications,
jeff_wisnia wrote:


A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff


Cool, thanks, Jeff. I remember seeing some of those pics before, but not
that large and not that many. Did you translate the Chinese? Are you
going to leave that on your site indefinitely? If so I'll bookmark it.

The page came pretty much as you see it as an e-mail from a fellow
college alumni buddy.

I made it into a simple html file and added a link to a news source to
calm the folks who thought it might be a Photoshopped hoax.

I'll leave it up where it is unless I run out of storage space on my
Comcast account.

For those who haven't stumbled onto it already there's a website called
"Wayback Machine":

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Which can let you see web pages which have been removed from their
original server locations.

It's saved my backside more than once when I goofed and accidently
deleted something from my Comcast storage space and found I didn't have
a copy stored anywhere else.

Jeff



--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?

Tony wrote:
jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?

I'd guess they were a contractor cutting corners if I had to guess...if
those hollow ones were really actual pilings and not drain conduits or
somesuch. There also appear solid pourings as well. W/O design
documents are to say what might have been intended.

Certainly the lack of any steel of consequence meant there was
absolutely no tensile strength in the design to speak of.

Looks to me like what happened was that the lateral force from the
loading and wet soil conditions caused the whole thing to tilt and at
the critical point the tension load was too much and they fractured.

As to the question regarding steel, undoubtedly would not have broken
cleanly; what would have been total result would have depended on depth
of pilings (moment arm to resist rotation) and actual soil conditions
and, of course, whether any steel was of sufficient size/strength to
withstand the moment arm itself of the load caused by the initial tilt.

One would wonder about the long-term stability of the rest against
extraordinary high wind, particularly if the supposition there might be
inferior work as compared to design in play were to be true...

It really is hard to fathom there would be no steel reinforcement in the
design...

--

One would wonder about the long-term stability of the rest against
extraordinary high wind, particularly if the supposition there might be
inferior work as compared to design in play were to be true...

It really is hard to fathom there would be no steel reinforcement in the
design...

chinese find awesome cost cutting methods.

did you know 45,000 died last year in mining accidents?

The US should allow ALL imports, but require them to meet US health,
safety and workers rules........

wrote in message
...

One would wonder about the long-term stability of the rest against
extraordinary high wind, particularly if the supposition there might be
inferior work as compared to design in play were to be true...

It really is hard to fathom there would be no steel reinforcement in the
design...

chinese find awesome cost cutting methods.

did you know 45,000 died last year in mining accidents?

The US should allow ALL imports, but require them to meet US health,
safety and workers rules........

Then there were be no point in having exported several million manufacturing
jobs out of the country (he says with deep sarcasm). Anyone who thinks
those jobs are coming back is smoking jimson weed or worse. The Chinese
version of OSHA is: anyone complaining about workplace safety is taken away
and shot and their families are sent a bill for the bullets. The scariest
part is that they could sink us (and perhaps themselves and maybe the whole
world) by just selling all the US bonds they are holding. I read today that
the real, "uncooked" jobless rate is over 17%. That's close to 1 out of
every 5 workers being out of work.

--
Bobby G.

On Nov 7, 2:26�pm, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message

...



One would wonder about the long-term stability of the rest against
extraordinary high wind, particularly if the supposition there might be
inferior work as compared to design in play were to be true...

It really is hard to fathom there would be no steel reinforcement in the
design...

chinese find awesome cost cutting methods.

did you know 45,000 died last year in mining accidents?

The US should allow ALL imports, but require them to meet US health,
safety and workers rules........

Then there were be no point in having exported several million manufacturing
jobs out of the country (he says with deep sarcasm). �Anyone who thinks
those jobs are coming back is smoking jimson weed or worse. �The Chinese
version of OSHA is: anyone complaining about workplace safety is taken away
and shot and their families are sent a bill for the bullets. �The scariest
part is that they could sink us (and perhaps themselves and maybe the whole
world) by just selling all the US bonds they are holding. �I read today that
the real, "uncooked" jobless rate is over 17%. �That's close to 1 out of
every 5 workers being out of work.

--
Bobby G.

yeah NAFTA was a BAD idea.............

the machines I sell and service for a living now come from china.

my family in phoenix is devastated, nearly all manfacturing jobs went
to mexico, home prices are in free fall, severe unemployment.

how long will recovery take 5 years? 10? 20

the only way we can compete is moving to robotics with artifical
intelligence.

or drop our standard of living to near match 3rd world countries

wrote in message
...
On Nov 7, 2:26?pm, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message

...



One would wonder about the long-term stability of the rest against
extraordinary high wind, particularly if the supposition there might
be
inferior work as compared to design in play were to be true...

It really is hard to fathom there would be no steel reinforcement in
the
design...

chinese find awesome cost cutting methods.

did you know 45,000 died last year in mining accidents?

The US should allow ALL imports, but require them to meet US health,
safety and workers rules........

Then there were be no point in having exported several million
manufacturing
jobs out of the country (he says with deep sarcasm). ?Anyone who thinks
those jobs are coming back is smoking jimson weed or worse. ?The Chinese
version of OSHA is: anyone complaining about workplace safety is taken
away
and shot and their families are sent a bill for the bullets. ?The scariest
part is that they could sink us (and perhaps themselves and maybe the
whole
world) by just selling all the US bonds they are holding. ?I read today
that
the real, "uncooked" jobless rate is over 17%. ?That's close to 1 out of
every 5 workers being out of work.

--
Bobby G.

yeah NAFTA was a BAD idea.............

the machines I sell and service for a living now come from china.

I've heard a number of people tell me that their factory was disassembled,
crated and sent over to China. That's going to turn out to be as smart as
when we sold Japan scrap steel from the 3rd Av. El only to see it come back
in the form of battleships and aircraft carriers that killed our soldiers
and sailors. We'll go toe-to-toe with the Chinese someday. "The two
biggest kids on the block, they're bound to get in a fight."

By the time we end up in a fight a strong national military, ours will have
been so well trained in fighting terrorists in hiding in the hills that we
may take quite a beating. Instead, we're doing what we've done for the last
100 years: fought Europe's wars for them. Iran's missiles will land in
Spain, England, Germany, Russia and Italy a long, long time before they ever
reach the US. Saddam was a bigger threat to his neighbors than he ever was
to us. But who spent trillions in treasure to fight him while bleeding out
jobs by the millions?

my family in phoenix is devastated, nearly all manfacturing jobs went
to mexico, home prices are in free fall, severe unemployment.

Sorry to hear that. When SocialSec blows up, lots of boomers are going to
be in bad, bad shape. No one's talking about how the unemployment rate
means there are fewer people than ever paying into the system. Without
another technical miracle like the PC (no, it wasn't tax cuts that made the
90's so fruitful) we're in bad, bad shape.

how long will recovery take 5 years? 10? 20

No one even talks about the worst case scenario and that's we never recover.
I read that the bozos that did all the fancy hedge fund risk predictions had
deliberately excluded the Great Depression from their calculations. Ostrich
mathematics.

the only way we can compete is moving to robotics with artifical
intelligence.

Maybe. I believe only a national commitment to solar like the one JFK made
to reach the moon *might* save us. I read an article that said robotics
firms are suffering in Japan and many robots that are leased out are "out of
work." When robots go on the unemployment line, you KNOW you've got a
serious depression on your hands.

or drop our standard of living to near match 3rd world countries

Equilibrium. I don't see how we could have expected anything else from
exporting all our jobs to the 3rd world and then selling them the equity in
our homes to pay for all the cheap goods they were able to produce. Their
S.O.L. rises, ours falls. Water seeks its own level sort of thing.

I think the bottom line is that Malthus was right at the wrong time. The
earth just can't support 8 or 10 billion people. The do-gooders like Bill
Gates bringing medicine and lower death rates to people who can barely feed
themselves as it is are really just adding to the crisis that will hit us
like a hammer 20 years from now when the population of the world explodes.
For every powerplant we equip with scrubbers, China builds two new ones
without.

--
Bobby G.

wrote:

did you know 45,000 died last year in
mining accidents?

Citation please.

Tony wrote:
jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is
mine, they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very
similar. Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick
it out of the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?

For the same amount of material, a tube is stronger than a solid cylinder.

Compare a soda straw with a #2 pencil.

No, wait...

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


Sorry to hear that. When SocialSec blows up, lots of boomers are going to
be in bad, bad shape. No one's talking about how the unemployment rate
means there are fewer people than ever paying into the system. Without
another technical miracle like the PC (no, it wasn't tax cuts that made the
90's so fruitful) we're in bad, bad shape.
I have always called that the Greenspan/Gates Expansion. Gspan for
the ridiculously low interest rates for a ridiculously long length of
time, and Gates as a proxy for the productivity gains made possible by
computerization.

--
To find that place where the rats don't race
and the phones don't ring at all.
If once, you've slept on an island.
Scott Kirby "If once you've slept on an island"

On Nov 7, 8:17*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Tony wrote:
jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is
mine, they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very
*similar. Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick
it out of the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? *They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. *Hollow? *Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?

For the same amount of material, a tube is stronger than a solid cylinder..

Dig, dig, dig. The hollow piling is stronger for its intended load.
The hollow tube piling has greater bearing capacity. The woulda/
coulda/shoulda Monday morning quarterbacking stuff is stupid. The
excavation and the heavy rains are what caused the building to fall.
Note the other buildings did not fall.

I know nothing of the seismic activity in the area, climate (read
typhoon, etc), so it is pointless to speculate whether the design was
adequate or not. If a contractor undermines a foundation, whatever
the design, it will fail.

R

On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:35 -0500, Tony
wrote:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?


It's a little hard to see in the photos but to me it looks like the
pilings were actually made by first driving metal piles into the
ground and then filling the inside of them and encasing the outside of
them in concrete. most likely they drilled a hole to some depth, then
dropped the piles in and drove them deeper, then backfilled it all
with concrete with some rebar.

CWLee wrote:


wrote:

did you know 45,000 died last year in mining accidents?

Citation please.

Actually, it was over twice that and that was a reduction...


China’s State Administration of Work Safety said the coal mining
death toll fell 15% last year, dipping below 100,000 fatalities for
the first time in 14 years.

The official death toll for 2008 was 91,172 fatalities while the
number of accidents dropped more than 10% to 506,000.

http://paguntaka.org/2009/01/30/mining-exploration-accident-in-china-2008-review-china%E2%80%99s-coal-mining-death-decline/

--

RicodJour wrote:
....
Dig, dig, dig. The hollow piling is stronger for its intended load.
The hollow tube piling has greater bearing capacity. The woulda/
coulda/shoulda Monday morning quarterbacking stuff is stupid. The
excavation and the heavy rains are what caused the building to fall.
Note the other buildings did not fall.

I know nothing of the seismic activity in the area, climate (read
typhoon, etc), so it is pointless to speculate whether the design was
adequate or not. If a contractor undermines a foundation, whatever
the design, it will fail.

Certainly, that last was precisely the point I was made. The failure
was of the nature it was because once the initial lean became of a
certain magnitude the construction had little compensation for tension.

I still say seems at least moderately unusual to have so little steel in
large concrete construction. I've not tried a typical design wind
loading calculation estimate, but there would be quite a moment on those
towers that would be translated downward on the windward side.

__

Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:35 -0500, Tony
wrote:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/
I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?


It's a little hard to see in the photos but to me it looks like the
pilings were actually made by first driving metal piles into the
ground and then filling the inside of them and encasing the outside of
them in concrete. most likely they drilled a hole to some depth, then
dropped the piles in and drove them deeper, then backfilled it all
with concrete with some rebar.

I didn't see any rebar of any size at all anywhere in any of the pictures...

--

On Nov 8, 8:42�am, dpb wrote:
Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:35 -0500, Tony
wrote:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/
I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.

"dpb" wrote:

did you know 45,000 died last year
in mining accidents?

Citation please.

Actually, it was over twice that and
that was a reduction...


China’s State Administration of Work
Safety said the coal mining
death toll fell 15% last year,
dipping below 100,000 fatalities for
the first time in 14 years.

The official death toll for 2008 was
91,172 fatalities while the
number of accidents dropped more than
10% to 506,000.

(Rest deleted)

I was the person seeking the citation,
since those numbers seemed much too high
for me. The citation provided did in
fact support the very high number of
deaths in China (~100,000 per year) in
coal mining. I was still skeptical, and
did a search on "coal mining deaths
china" and found several sites that
provided numbers much lower. Finally, I
found one which said:

CORRECTION: 3,215 coal mining deaths in
2008

On January 28, China.org.cn carried a
Xinhua story that mistakenly reported
91,172 deaths due to accidents in
China's coal mines during 2008. The
correct figure for 2008 coal mining
deaths is 3,215, according to the State
Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).

SAWS told China.org.cn today that a
total of 3,215 people were killed in
coal mining accidents in China during
2008, down from 3,786 in 2007.

A SAWS spokesperson said the 91,172
figure referred to the total number of
deaths resulting from 413,752 accidents
of all types throughout China during
2008. The figures include all workplace
accidents as well as road traffic
accidents. The corresponding figures for
2007 were 101,480 and 506,376. It is
believed a mistake at a press conference
led to the total accident figures being
applied to coal mining alone.

The Chinese authorities acknowledge
there is a major problem of health and
safety in the country's coal mines, but
say most accidents occur in small,
privately-owned, and often illegal,
mines rather than larger, state-owned
producers. They also maintain that
safety standards are gradually
improving.

(China.org.cn February 9, 2009)



http://paguntaka.org/2009/01/30/mining-exploration-accident-in-china-2008-review-china%E2%80%99s-coal-mining-death-decline/


I can provide the links I read from the
search I described above, but I suggest
any other skeptics do a similar search
of their own. I now believe the annual
deaths in China from coal mining are in
the 5,000-10,000 range, not
approximately 100,000.

Best regards to all

On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:42:50 -0600, dpb wrote:

Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:35 -0500, Tony
wrote:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/
I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?


It's a little hard to see in the photos but to me it looks like the
pilings were actually made by first driving metal piles into the
ground and then filling the inside of them and encasing the outside of
them in concrete. most likely they drilled a hole to some depth, then
dropped the piles in and drove them deeper, then backfilled it all
with concrete with some rebar.

I didn't see any rebar of any size at all anywhere in any of the pictures...

There is some. Go to the very bottom picture, it's the best one for
seeing the rebar and the steel pile. Upper left corner of the photo.

"EXT" wrote in news:4af4a115$0$65858
:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

Those pilings look awfully flimsy, no wonder they snapped off, there was
hardly any re-rods and they were just hollow tubes, not much more than a
concrete drain pipe.


Think it has Chinese Drywall?

On Nov 7, 9:10*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message

...



"mike" wrote in message
....

Sorry. *I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. *So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the
buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to
snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the energy
is
applied all at once.

Yeah but . . . (-: *Many of the windows didn't even break. *That's just
bizarre. I wonder what the "rate of descent" was. *I guess if it tipped over
gradually enough there wasn't a big slam at the end, but still, it's a
pretty amazing site. Or sight. *Or even cite. *Thanks for posting that,
Jeff.

I guess I am used to seeing collapsed buildings in the aftermath of
earthquakes where the buildings fall because they are shaken apart. *The
Shanghai building didn't have to endure any pre-collapse shaking and I am
betting the ground gave way slowly and the pilings appear to have bent
before they broke, asborbing both time and energy and moderating the forces
on the building. *Still, what a ride that must have been. *Sounds like a
project for Disney World. *Here are some random EQ photos, FWIW:

http://images.google.com/images?q=japanese+earthquakes

--
Bobby G.

"I guess if it tipped over gradually enough there wasn't a big
slam at the end..."

Imagine being in the building at the time and feeling it slowly lean
over. If it went over slow enough, you could just walk across the
floor and step onto the wall, remaining upright the entire time.

As long as you could avoid the objects sliding across the floor with
you, and the pictures and stuff falling from the opposite wall, it
looks like you could have walked away from this type of collapse
relatively unharmed.

Of course, getting to the door that was now on the ceiling could be
tricky!

On Nov 9, 9:23�am, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Nov 7, 9:10�am, "Robert Green" wrote:





"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message

...

"mike" wrote in message
....

Sorry. �I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. �So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the
buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to
snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the energy
is
applied all at once.

Yeah but . . . (-: �Many of the windows didn't even break. �That's just
bizarre. I wonder what the "rate of descent" was. �I guess if it tipped over
gradually enough there wasn't a big slam at the end, but still, it's a
pretty amazing site. Or sight. �Or even cite. �Thanks for posting that,
Jeff.

I guess I am used to seeing collapsed buildings in the aftermath of
earthquakes where the buildings fall because they are shaken apart. �The
Shanghai building didn't have to endure any pre-collapse shaking and I am
betting the ground gave way slowly and the pilings appear to have bent
before they broke, asborbing both time and energy and moderating the forces
on the building. �Still, what a ride that must have been. �Sounds like a
project for Disney World. �Here are some random EQ photos, FWIW:

http://images.google.com/images?q=japanese+earthquakes

--
Bobby G.

"I guess if it tipped over gradually enough there wasn't a big
slam at the end..."

Imagine being in the building at the time and feeling it slowly lean
over. If it went over slow enough, you could just walk across the
floor and step onto the wall, remaining upright the entire time.

As long as you could avoid the objects sliding across the floor with
you, and the pictures and stuff falling from the opposite wall, it
looks like you could have walked away from this type of collapse
relatively unharmed.

Of course, getting to the door that was now on the ceiling could be
tricky!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Imagine walking thru that building TODAY.

it could be a tourist attraction

Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:42:50 -0600, dpb wrote:

Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:35 -0500, Tony
wrote:

jeff_wisnia wrote:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building collapse
and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/
I'm glad I don't live there, I'd never remember which apartment is mine,
they all look alike, even the ones that are different look very similar.
Well if the flat one was my building I suppose I could pick it out of
the rest.

What is with the hollow pilings? They really look weak with a little
bit of steel wire mesh in them. Hollow? Would it have happened if it
were steel I beams encased in concrete?

It's a little hard to see in the photos but to me it looks like the
pilings were actually made by first driving metal piles into the
ground and then filling the inside of them and encasing the outside of
them in concrete. most likely they drilled a hole to some depth, then
dropped the piles in and drove them deeper, then backfilled it all
with concrete with some rebar.
I didn't see any rebar of any size at all anywhere in any of the pictures...

There is some. Go to the very bottom picture, it's the best one for
seeing the rebar and the steel pile. Upper left corner of the photo.

Evidently that one piece of rebar wasn't enough. ;-)

In eonecommunications,
jeff_wisnia typed:
A more complete set of photos of this June's Shanghai building
collapse and diagrams explaining what happened and why.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/bldg_fall/

Jeff

lol, with a little bracing, that coule be turned into another building just
as it sets! Imagine the room dimensions!

"DerbyDad03" wrote in message
...
On Nov 7, 9:10 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message

...



"mike" wrote in message
...

Sorry. I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the
buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to
snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the energy
is
applied all at once.

Yeah but . . . (-: Many of the windows didn't even break. That's just
bizarre. I wonder what the "rate of descent" was. I guess if it tipped
over
gradually enough there wasn't a big slam at the end, but still, it's a
pretty amazing site. Or sight. Or even cite. Thanks for posting that,
Jeff.

I guess I am used to seeing collapsed buildings in the aftermath of
earthquakes where the buildings fall because they are shaken apart. The
Shanghai building didn't have to endure any pre-collapse shaking and I am
betting the ground gave way slowly and the pilings appear to have bent
before they broke, asborbing both time and energy and moderating the
forces
on the building. Still, what a ride that must have been. Sounds like a
project for Disney World. Here are some random EQ photos, FWIW:

http://images.google.com/images?q=japanese+earthquakes

--
Bobby G.

"I guess if it tipped over gradually enough there wasn't a big
slam at the end..."

Imagine being in the building at the time and feeling it slowly lean
over. If it went over slow enough, you could just walk across the
floor and step onto the wall, remaining upright the entire time.

As long as you could avoid the objects sliding across the floor with
you, and the pictures and stuff falling from the opposite wall, it
looks like you could have walked away from this type of collapse
relatively unharmed.

Of course, getting to the door that was now on the ceiling could be
tricky!

I thought about what a ride that must have been. It's a natural for Disney.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

wrote in message
...
On Nov 9, 9:23?am, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Nov 7, 9:10?am, "Robert Green" wrote:





"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message

...

"mike" wrote in message

...

Sorry. ?I meant to agree with Robert, but my computer hiccupped. ?So,
I guess I'll re-iterate (again) that it's amazing the building didn't
crumble more.

I suspect that the reason it gives that appearance is because the
buildings
collapse was cushioned a bit in the soft mud, allowing the stresses to
snap
things sequentially as it fell rather than an explosion where the
energy
is
applied all at once.

Yeah but . . . (-: ?Many of the windows didn't even break. ?That's just
bizarre. I wonder what the "rate of descent" was. ?I guess if it tipped
over
gradually enough there wasn't a big slam at the end, but still, it's a
pretty amazing site. Or sight. ?Or even cite. ?Thanks for posting that,
Jeff.

I guess I am used to seeing collapsed buildings in the aftermath of
earthquakes where the buildings fall because they are shaken apart. ?The
Shanghai building didn't have to endure any pre-collapse shaking and I
am
betting the ground gave way slowly and the pilings appear to have bent
before they broke, asborbing both time and energy and moderating the
forces
on the building. ?Still, what a ride that must have been. ?Sounds like a
project for Disney World. ?Here are some random EQ photos, FWIW:

http://images.google.com/images?q=japanese+earthquakes

--
Bobby G.

"I guess if it tipped over gradually enough there wasn't a big
slam at the end..."

Imagine being in the building at the time and feeling it slowly lean
over. If it went over slow enough, you could just walk across the
floor and step onto the wall, remaining upright the entire time.

As long as you could avoid the objects sliding across the floor with
you, and the pictures and stuff falling from the opposite wall, it
looks like you could have walked away from this type of collapse
relatively unharmed.

Of course, getting to the door that was now on the ceiling could be
tricky!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Imagine walking thru that building TODAY.

it could be a tourist attraction

I remember driving across the Verazzano Narrows Bridge in NYC during a very
windy blizzard. I think that's the most scared I've every been. The bridge
deck was icing over, tractor-trailers were rocking from side to side from
the high wind and the bridge deck was shaking very hard.

Everbody in their cars had the hunkered down look you see on pictures of
Civil War soldiers charging into a storm of bullets. Not one smile, hands
clenched to the wheel, passengers all ashen-faced with fear. All I could
think about was that famous film of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge breaking up in
high winds. I was driving an Oldsmobile F-85 with rear wheel drive (I don't
think very many cars had FrontWD back then) and it was fishtailing all over
the road. The only way to drive was to make sure you had slow, but steady
forward motion. If you stopped, you were going to spin on start up.

This was back when the VN bridge first opened, about 1964 or so, and there
had not been a storm that bad so I figured I was a goner. What I worried
about was whether I had clean underwear on and whether God would mind that I
suddenly couldn't remember the words to the Lord's Prayer. Yes, the mind
works in really weird ways. So I kind sort of imagine what a ride like
that feels like. Sort of. (-: I'll bet, by some standards, the building
would be less scary because it was over in seconds. My bridge ordeal took
about an hour to cross a bridge that normally took 4 minutes.

--
Bobby G.