Lateral Bracing Effects on Slenderness, Stress Levels, and Lateral Displacements due to Wind and Seismic Events on a Steel Structure under Construction in Colombia

The Escollera Tower was supposed to be the tallest building in Colombia in 2007 with a total projected height of 200.3 m. However, on May 13, 2007, when the tower reached the height of 152.3 m, an unusual wind hit the city of Cartagena, affecting the structure of the building. It swayed approximately 1 m at the tip of construction, resulting in significant damage to the columns and made it impossible to continue construction. The tower was disassembled through the intervention of the society of engineers and architects from Bolivar, Colombia. The failure took place in the structure that only consisted of beams and columns; the original design that included lateral bracings was ignored. This research studied slenderness effects, stress levels, and lateral displacements of the Escollera Tower structure for basic loading, and for wind actions with and without bracing. The analysis of the tower used FEM to account for the geometry of the original cross sections. Results show how the lack of bracing during construction and a lack of detail during the design stages of the structure led to unexpected displacements and bad structural behavior under a midintensity wind, which could have been accounted for if modeled with proper details at the time of design and construction.