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Monday, October 1, 2007

Falling Beams - Looks Like They Were Placed Wrongly....

If you read my earlier post on the collapsed beams, please go back and examine the photo carefully.

You will notice the crane picking up a section of the broken beam and if you check carefully, the beam is of rectangular section with the height about 2 to 3 times the width.

Beams are designed to carry loads and usually placed so that height is vertical as this makes better use of the property of the beam called the "Area Moment Of Inertia" that is the ability to resist bending.

But the photo shows all the beams appear to have been placed wrongly unless they were all turned 90 degrees after the collapse.

This incident shows the hoisting contractor had not been given proper detailed instructions on how the beams should have been handled or placed.




2 comments:

Pak Zawi said...

h.j.
You maybe right a to the cause of the collapse. I always have the suspicion that given by the way things are always done and the normal lack of supervision, the contractors may have cut some corners to save cost and maximise profit. Another simple reason is that the beam was not sufficiently cured and thus break down.
I am not engineer though and I dont claim to speak with authority.

H J Angus said...

zawi
I am an engineer but also do not claim to speak with authority!