Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail

Meticulously and simply written, beautifully illustrated. Fascinating cases from antiquity to the present. You get a real feel for the field of large structures, their conception, design, building, maintenance, and the associated personalities.I would encourage the authors to do a similar book on the World Trade Center collapses, including WTC7. Since they are associated with a company that was involved in WTC litigation, they might be in a good position to do such a review book.And they might evaluate some of the associated factors, such as extreme high temperatures in the wreckage, possible iron microspheres in the dust, .....I found this book in the bibligraphy of a report entitled "What Did and Did not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York" by Zdenek P. Bazant. Bazant is a very heavy academic hitter in the field of structure analysis and behavior. His article is very technical, laying out the establishment collapse scenario, which has been contradicted by the people that want a new investigation, e.g. [...], [...].The US Government National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) study did not pursue the actual collapse, it just studied fire, and possible structural distortion up to the moment of collapse. Bazant follows the collapse but not in a lay intelligible manner.Maybe the authors could do better.

Great book

Great case studies of why buildings collapse

This is one of the best books I've read on the engineering behind structural failures. The authors teach by example, exploring fallen apartment buildings, stadiums, bridges and other structure, and using each to illustrate an important engineering principle. The illustrations are also an invaluable aid to understanding the problems in each structure (particularly for readers who, like me, may find it difficult to follow verbiage on the orientation of strutts, the direction of braces, etc.).I only had two gripes: a glossary provided the only introduction to many basic concepts; and political/historical/personal context would have made for a livelier account. The glossary was a very helpful resource for understanding basic things like, what "load" is, and how it effects structures. It might have been better to also work those descriptions into the text as the concepts arose - this would have made it easier for me to assimilate them. Also, I enjoyed it when the authors gave context for many of the engineering decisions made - for instance, that a stadium rooftop was designed, in part, because flaws in the city sewer system prevented the efficient disposition of significant rainfall. However, more of this kind of context - particularly historical and personal facts that had bearing on design decisions - would have made each example into a better story, and improved the reading experience for me.Overall, a highly recommended book.

This is a really good intro level (I.e. no math required) discussion of how structural failures can occur. It includes review material on the basics of how structures work.

This book arrived in perfect condition.

Muy bien empacado, buena amplitud de las paginas, ideal para estudiar.

This was a required book for a Construction degree. It gave a lot of insight to structure of buildings, things to remember and consider.