Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities

Was the collapse of the Hyatt hotel atrium walkway a senseless tragedy or a steppingstone in the betterment of the engineering and scientific endeavor? The collapse claimed 114 lives, leading to a great public and professional outcry and having a dramatic impact on the careers and lives of many fine professionals. The architecture and engineering (A&E) community in the United States began a soul-searching debate on issues as diverse as how project workflow is managed to professional responsibility and ethics. Fundamental errors were identified in the project interaction within the A&E group as well as the construction industry. This review provides a presentation of the demand-capacity ratio within elements primary to the failure and presents results of detailed inelastic analysis of the box girder-to-hanger rod connection. The collapse occurred simply because of the doubling of the load on the connection resulting from an ill-considered change of an ill-defined structural detail. How this error was produced, and how any minor additional effort might have substantially improved the connection capacity, is addressed herein.

This paper presents a brief chronology of the events that preceded the collapse of the walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel, including the prior failure that occurred during construction and the evolution of the detail that caused the catastrophe. Many of the facts surrounding the case were not publicized, due to the litigation. Some were not brought out during the litigation. No attempt will be made to affix responsibility, as these issues were resolved years ago. The chronology is followed by a discussion of the events that contributed to the collapse and of the changes that have been made in the industry toward preventing a similar occurrence.

Nearly 20 years ago, an elegant Kansas City, Mo., hotel was the site of one of the most famous engineering failures in recent history. The collapse of two elevated walkways in the lobby left 114 people dead and nearly 200 injured, and plunged the engineering profession into a dilemma over how to deal with the engineers who were involved. In the mid-1970s, as the Kansas City Hyatt Regency was under construction, the engineering profession's codes of ethics were under construction as well. ASCE leaders argued that their society's new code should reflect a new hierarchy of engineers' responsibilities. “Public welfare,” they agreed, should be the “primary concern” of engineers, followed by engineers' duty to “clients, employer or employees,” and loyalty to the profession. The implications of the new ethics code became disturbingly clear with the Hyatt. This paper tells the story of how the engineering profession struggled to transform an unspeakable disaster into a powerful, if painful, lesson about the meaning of ethics in engineering.

For nineteen years since the tragic collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Hotel's walkway on July 17, 1981, the engineering profession and construction industry has studied and endeavored to understand what happened, why it happened, who was at fault, what should have been done to prevent it, and how the engineering and construction industry can guard against future structural collapses. This paper, by the Structural Engineer of Record, addresses the events during and subsequent to the design, bidding, and construction of the walkway and the investigation that followed the collapse. It discusses the tragedy, its continuing impact on the public and the standard of the professional practice of engineering, and the two fundamental issues: (1) What is the role and responsibility of the Engineer of Record? and (2) Can design responsibility be delegated in today's construction market?

The objectives of this paper are to identify and assess the interface problems among the various construction parties. The methodology used in this research consists of two phases. In the first phase, a literature review and interviews with various construction professionals were conducted in order to identify the interface problems among them. This resulted in the identification of 19 common interface problems, which were classified into four categories: financial problems, inadequate contract and specification, environmental problems, and other common problems. In the second phase, a questionnaire was developed that included the identified interface problems obtained from the first phase. This survey was then randomly distributed to selected samples of 102 various construction professions consisting of owners, designers, general contractors, subcontractors, and maintenance contractors from Saudi Arabia to evaluate the severity of the 19 identified interface problems. The relative severity of the categories and their related problems were determined and then ranked according to a severity index. Three categories were found to have a “severe” effect, while the remaining category was rated “moderately severe.” Fourteen of the detailed common problems were evaluated as “severe,” while the remaining five were evaluated as “moderately severe.” Furthermore, this study presents additional common problems obtained from the survey.

In this study, the ultrasonic time of flight diffraction (TOFD) method to locate and size flaws in steel members was evaluated. This was done by measuring the location and depth of flaws implanted in steel plate specimens and of a fatigue crack in the flange of a full-scale steel plate girder. The data showed that the TOFD procedure was very accurate to locate flaws (within 5% of the actual location). The accuracy of the procedure to measure flaw depth depends, however, on the proximity of the flaw tip to the scanning surface. Flaw tips at depths ≥6 mm below the scanning surface were measured to an accuracy of 20% of the actual value. When the flaw tip was at a depth ≤3 mm below the scanning surface, flaw depth was overestimated. Additional scans on the opposite surface of the material may be used, however, to overcome this limitation and to obtain an accurate measurement of such flaws. The method offered good repeatability and can be used to accurately locate and size flaws with an appropriate scanning scheme.

An outdoor distribution oil immersed transformer on the premises of a factory was exposed to intense heat due to a fire that occurred at a neighboring factory. The licensed electrical worker for the premises where the affected transformer was installed informed his client, the owner, that the affected transformer was subjected to a high-temperature environment during the fire and alleged that the life span of the affected transformer was shortened considerably. Consequently, the owner and the licensed electrical worker insisted that the affected transformer be replaced with a new unit. The paper presents an approach for the assessment of the condition and loss of life of the affected transformer.