Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities

Following ten days of extremely heavy rains from two typhoons, a fast moving slope failure of municipal solid waste was triggered at the Payatas Landfill, Quezon City, Philippines. The wasteslide buried more than 330 persons. Only 58 persons were rescued while, after weeks of recovery efforts, 278 bodies were recovered. This paper documents the events and circumstances that led to the failure. Beyond stating the known facts leading up to the failure, only a brief discussion of the suspected reasons for the failure is presented in this paper.

A detailed review was conducted of the building industry to develop a list of viable candidates for use as emergency shelter structures. To facilitate this review, a side-by-side analysis of each system had to be conducted. This analysis was facilitated through a request for proposal in which a prototype building was submitted to each interested group. Each party was required to submit a detailed proposal for review by the research team. The investigative team measured each shelter system against 18 performance parameters, classified as military (end-user), structural, and pass/fail. Four shelter systems provided adequate documentation with respect to structural performance and usage parameters. This paper reports on the results of this investigation and develops a list of general conclusions with respect to available emergency shelter systems. This work was supported by the Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, University of South Florida, under contract from the Office for Naval Research.

Several modular-block reinforced-soil retaining walls failed during the 1999 Ji-Ji (Chi-chi) earthquake of Taiwan. Similar walls showed distress during the 1994 Northridge, Calif., earthquake. The instability or failure of these walls offered an opportunity to validate the simplistic pseudostatic limit-equilibrium procedures. In this study, the Ta Kung Wall of the Ji-Ji earthquake is analyzed, and the Gould and Valencia Walls of the Northridge earthquake are revisited with an improved estimation of local site acceleration. The local acceleration was estimated by using simple attenuation relationships obtained through the earthquake records. The results of analysis indicate that these three walls had adequate internal stability under estimated site acceleration. The geosynthetic length was inadequate to resist compound modes of failure where the potential failure surface extends beyond the reinforced zone. The external stability was most critical in the presence of horizontal and vertical accelerations.

The oil and gas industry represents a significant source of income for many countries in the world. The industry considers cross-country pipelines, which transport petrochemical products, to be one of their major investments. Hence, there is a need to sustain, preserve, and prolong the life of this investment through good management practices. This paper presents a rational and systematic method for maintenance management of these pipelines. It is a risk-based approach that uses an analytical hierarchy process model to determine the probability of pipeline failure and the expected value approach to determine the expected costs of failure. The method was applied on nine operating cross-country pipelines transporting different petrochemical products. The method is helpful in prioritizing pipelines for annual maintenance planning and in ranking causes of failure by severity of impact.

A case of failure of bracings and the associated leg member of a $220\mathrm{kV}$ double circuit, transmission line tower was reported from one of the State Electricity Boards of India. The bracings sustained extensive damage and there was visible bending in the leg member. All these members sustained blotches. Except for severe lightning, the weather was normal. Investigations into the causes of failure of the tower brought out that the tower members failed due to temperature induced forces, the temperature rise being due to lightning currents flowing through the members. An analysis of temperature stresses in failed members, their buckling strength, etc. done as a part of the investigation is detailed in this paper.

The objectives of this paper are to identify strategic issues impacting multifamily affordable housing resident satisfaction and to develop a systematic model to forecast residential satisfaction based on data gathered from two multifamily affordable housing properties located in Atlanta. This study concluded that major variables impacting residence are satisfaction with property management, tenant selection policies, enforcing residential rules, communication with residents, property management staff answering quickly to residents’ concerns, how cooperative property management staff is with residents, how friendly staff is to residents, residents referring their friends to live in their apartment complex, quality of the community, maintenance, residents’ quality of life, building quality, quality of building repairs, overall cleanness of property grounds, overall cleanness of the community, residents’ perception of safeness in their neighborhood at night, residents’ perception of safeness at night while inside their units, and overall resident satisfaction with their apartment units. The study provides a framework for developing a decision support system that could be used by property managers or developers.

The general objective of this research was the construction and evaluation of a bridge using high-performance lightweight concrete (HPLWC). The resulting bridge over the Chickahominy River near Richmond, Va., consists of 15 prestressed American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Type IV girders made of HPLWC with a density of $\mathrm{1,920}\mathrm{kg}∕{\mathrm{m}}^3$ and a minimum required $28\text{-}\text{day}$ compressive strength of $55\mathrm{MPa}$ . The bridge also has a lightweight concrete (LWC) deck with a density of $\mathrm{1,850}\mathrm{kg}∕{\mathrm{m}}^3$ and a minimum required $28\text{-}\text{day}$ compressive strength of $30\mathrm{MPa}$ . This research study is chiefly concerned with investigating the effects of using lightweight concrete in prestressed girders on transfer length, development length, flexural strength, girder live-load distribution factor, and dynamic load allowance. Transfer length was determined to be $432\mathrm{mm}$ , or $33d_b$ , for several girders at the time of prestress transfer. The development length was determined to be between 1,830 and $\mathrm{2,440}\mathrm{mm}$ , while the flexural strength ranged from 11 to 30% higher than the AASHTO flexural capacity. The measured distribution factors and dynamic load allowance were smaller than the AASHTO standard and LRFD values.

The main objective of this study is to identify the cause of the punchouts observed on Interstate Highway 30 (IH-30), and to identify possible rehabilitation alternatives. Several nondestructive tests, as well as coring and trenching, were conducted in both distressed and nondistressed areas. Middepth horizontal cracks were found during routine repair and by the trenching performed in this study. It is believed that due to temperature variation at an early stage, horizontal cracks developed at the middepth interface between the steel and concrete. The truck traffic caused the horizontal cracks to deteriorate further. Repetitive truck traffic and thermal loading forced the concrete to crack vertically from the middepth where there were horizontal cracks. The closely spaced transverse and longitudinal cracks, along with the delamination, caused punchouts. Although the problem is not imminent, an immediate seal plus a 75 mm heavy-duty stone matrix asphalt (SMA) overlay will probably provide the most cost-effective remedy for this section of IH-30. Existing distressed areas should be repaired before the rehabilitation. To slow the deterioration, the district should use a latex modified chip seal or asphalt rubber seal (AC15-5TR) followed by a 75 mm heavy duty SMA. This is to provide bonding between the concrete and SMA overlay. If the district chooses to do nothing at this time, it will become costly in 2–3 years if current environmental and traffic conditions hold. The cost to repair a severely deteriorated continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) would be several times more than the 75 mm heavy duty SMA overlay.

This paper addresses the causes of the premature failures observed on newly constructed ultra-thin whitetopping (UTW) sections. The key factors contributing to premature failure were high pouring temperature and an insufficient underlying asphalt layer. Severe cracking and deep rutting were observed on sections placed during the daytime when the weather was hot and dry. Pouring temperature was even more critical when river gravel aggregate was used because it has a high thermal coefficient of expansion. Also, a low water-cement ratio magnified the effect of thermal cracking at high pouring temperature. On the basis of field results, it was found that the use of high-strength concrete should be discouraged when the pour temperature is high, since high shrinkage and premature cracking can result. It was concluded that the deep rutting was caused by the pumping of fines from the underlying base layer, in locations where there was no erosion-resistant asphalt layer. Sections poured at temperatures below $30°\mathrm{C}$ with $100\mathrm{mm}$ of underlying asphalt performed well, and those two criteria are recommended for future UTW application.

In the early morning hours of May 16, 1968, the occupant of apartment 90 on the 18th floor of the 22-story Ronan Point apartment tower, in London, lit a match to brew her morning cup of tea. The resulting gas explosion initiated a partial collapse of the structure that killed four people and injured 17 (one of whom subsequently died). On investigation, the apartment tower was found to be deeply flawed in both design and construction. The existing building codes were found to be inadequate for ensuring the safety and integrity of high-rise precast concrete apartment buildings. The Larsen–Nielson building system, intended for buildings with only six stories, had been extended past the point of safety. The tower consisted of precast panels joined together without a structural frame. The connections relied, in large part, on friction. The apartment tower lacked alternate load paths to redistribute forces in the event of a partial collapse. When the structure was dismantled, investigators found appallingly poor workmanship at the critical connections between the panels. Subsequently, building codes in many countries have adopted structural integrity or “robustness” provisions that may be directly traced to the Ronan Point collapse.

During a concrete placement on the second story of a building under construction, the supporting cold-formed steel beams collapsed. Four workers were injured. The collapse occurred while concrete was being placed onto steel decking on the second floor of the structure. Cold-formed steel beams, without shoring, supported the steel decking. Analysis of the steel beams under the weight of concrete and workers using the applicable American Concrete Institute and American Iron and Steel Institute documents indicated that the beams were overstressed for construction loads. After the collapse, part of the structure was rebuilt using thicker beams. For the reconstruction, the slab was shored. Designing with cold-formed steel requires knowledge of failure modes that can often be safely ignored with hot-rolled steel, such as local buckling. Engineers designing with this material should take care to obtain the proper codes and design documents.