structural abuse

huangyhg

structural abuse
just thought this was an interesting topic.
when have you seen the builder effectively violate the structural integrity of your design because of a clash with services e.t.c.
here is a good (meaning bad) example:
i saw something just like that once in, of all places, san francisco.  a cross brace in a building was cut through (completely) to accommodate a pipe.  built in the 1950's the building apparently stood fine through numerous seismic events until late 1990's when we discovered it.

just like it writes:
"never over estimate people inteligence - some people are stupid"
obviously the guy who cut it knew he was doing.  the structure is still standing .  that is crazy.
never, but never question engineer's judgement
over the years, we have encountered some pretty silly things:
cutting out of the webs of a bar joist to pass ductwork thru it.
cutting of a beam to run ductwork and then replacing the beam with jogging the beam around the ductwork in plan (one continuous beam... like a crankshaft in plan)
removal of bracing
thats just plain stupidity !
the guy who did that should be sacked immediately!
hey, some perfectly qualified engineer might have spent hours analyzing that beam and discerned that it could be cut like that without a loss of integrity.
jstephen-
that's a column (sic) not a beam
i doubt that very much !
anyone else have some good examples? some good ones regarding cantilevers are mentioned in the aisc site fixes lecture.
those are the kind of thing resident consultant engineers, or any one assigned to supervise the structures during construction or when any adjustment to buildings are done need to look at.
let us engineers open our eyes and see beyond beyond that!
  
practicing engineering is hard than studying it!!!