urkish building collapses

huangyhg

turkish building collapses
quite a collapse...and the article implies this is typical in turkey.
well, i guess sozen is on his way there
i love the mention about geologists saying that many of the buildings need to be reinforced-not exactly their expertise (unless they are cave dwellings!).
another good example of public ignorance about our profession.
from the photo - i'm amazed at how not-dusty the surrounding buildings are...this compared to the massive dust-storm from the world trade center collapse.
swivel, do you know mete?  he was my reinforced concrete design prof.
lol, he was my prof for reinforced concrete and earthquake.  him, dr. ramirez, and dr. garcia.
goo purdue!!!
when did you graduate?
bsce - '01
msce - '03
besides.....you'd be surprised how many people know dr. sozen.
the turkish engineers are very good and well qualified. there are some top-flight globally known contractors. the current level of design and construction reflects the modern knowledge and the quality of the layers of roman and byzantine construction the current city of 12,000,000 people is built on. it has survived well in spite of straddling the fault separting europe form asia.
unfortunately, there is also a type of construction that was referred to as "midnight construction" by my engineer friend, where unpermitted multi-story buildings were built quickly on land with questionable titles. apartments are pre-sold. once the building was well underway, the questions of ownership and adeqauacy were brought up. the disputes end up being resolved and the land titles are "clarified". the costruction almost seems to start at midnight and is very quick. it also seems to follow the election cycles according to my friend.
an interesting item on istanbul - the history channel currently is running and re-running a series of shows on underground construction. the istanbul show is very good and accurately describes how the city is built on top of 2500 years of seismic resistant existing structures and civilizations below. there are many multi-story building built 20 to 40 feet above the cisterns the romans built. you can still go down into the structurall sound cisterns and see the columns that are supporting the roads, streets and buildings above. they also built 40 - 50' over an arena many times the size of the collosium that still is accessible. - good insight into the great engineering from the past.
dick
lived in turkey almost 2 years.  i agree the problem is not with the turkish engineers.  the problem with construction in general there is the same as what is at the root of most problems in turkey... the old "c" word... corruption.
biginch-born in the trenches.