STRUCTURAL FAILURE: A CASE STUDY

A REQUIREMENT IN STEEL DESIGN

SUBMITTED BY:

RUSSHELL L. ANG

JESSA C. ASERAL

EMILIE JUNE D. DIOPOL

SUBMITTED TO:

ENGR. GRACE C. GERONA

NAME OF STRUCTURE: Ruby Residency Building

LOCATION: Chaudi, Canacona, Goa, India

DESCRIPTION OF THE STRUCTURE:

A 5-storey residential project located in Canacona. It offers spacious

designed 2BHK & 3BHK (bedroom, hall, kitchen) apartments, with an open
space. The units options are thoughtfully designed to cater to the needs of
the residents. Residents of the area get easy access to community resources
like colleges, hospitals and recreational areas.

CAUSES OF FAILURE:

Raising of the columns in a loose soil, faulty structural design and poor
quality of construction materials seems to be the three prime reasons the
authorities have reached as a prima facie cause of the collapse of ruby
residency building in Canacona.

ANALYSIS:

Based on investigation, the following pitfalls had been found: the collapsed
building was erected close to a retaining wall that had been backfilled of
which the soil is a loosely filled mud where the foundation lies. M20 grade of
concrete appears to have been used for the columns instead of using an
m25 concrete which has comparably greater compressive strength than
m20. The debris of the collapsed building shows some beams and slabs
sitting on top of each but not a single column; all the columns have been
reduced to a powder at the site and could have been a case of weak
columns, strong beams. A lot of grayish powder material was seen scattered
and suspected to be “murras”, it is a byproduct of crushed gravel and is
available at the crushing site. It has suspected to be used as a substitute for
sand. There are many physical reasons a building can collapse but only one
driving motivation for that to happen, money. The real reason why this
building collapsed-corruption.
RECOMMENDATIONS:

So as this building mishap will not occur again, the following suggestions
should be taken into consideration:

 Piling for deep foundation must be obtain to sustain the loads for
loosely filled mud or clayey soils
 Quality inspection must be done to ensure that the building materials
are strong enough and had been tested
 Design the building where an actual load must be lesser than the
allowable load
 Computations must be double-checked to guarantee that the general
design meets the required minimum standard specifications.