The NIST team electronically marked and cataloged more than 200 concrete columns, beams, and floor slabs. Photo courtesy of NIST
Construction officials in Miami-Dade County suspect that the possible reason for the failure of the Surfside, Florida building on June 24 was delayed maintenance rather than weak building codes or inadequate 40-year recertification procedures required by the county. Partial collapse in 40 years-the old Champlain Tanan residential apartment killed at least 98 people.
Fredy Tain, director of the structure of the Miami-Dade County Department of Regulation and Economic Resources (RER), said the collapse of the 12-story apartment was a tragic case that “makes everything disproportionate.”
Although the cause of Surfside’s collapse is unclear, Jaime D. Gascon, director of RER’s board of directors and regulatory management department, stated that “currently, no flaws in the building regulations have been found to cause” failure.
Gascon believes that poor maintenance is the cause of the tragedy. He said that regulations require building owners to maintain their properties, but many owners postpone maintenance due to cost and other factors.
In the aftermath of the Champlain Tanan fiasco, construction officials from 35 jurisdictions in Miami-Dade County are collaborating on an initiative to review the recertification process to see if improvements can be made, including whether the 40-year time frame is sufficient. “We are on the perfect path,” Tain said.
Miami-Dade County officials said that Miami-Dade County and neighboring Broward County are the only two places in the United States that require recertification. Tyne asserts that this process is working well. “Over the years, due to 40 years of recertification, many failures have been avoided,” he said.
Tyne did not provide a specific historical case, explaining that this requires a lot of research work. But spurred by the tragedy on June 24, his department has just completed a visual audit of the appearance of 41 four-story or higher multi-family residential buildings in the unincorporated Miami-Dade County, which are either undergoing recertification or recertification. At the beginning of the recertification. The audit found no serious structural problems, except for the deteriorating steel columns supporting the enclosed corner balconies of the two four-story Royal Oak Apartments. Tyne said these problems were resolved the day after they were observed.
In addition, during the visual inspection of 62 multi-family buildings with four floors or higher, RER did not find any problems that could lead to evacuation due to a new recertification notice mailed in early July.
RER is also reviewing pending recertifications to ensure that the owner is taking appropriate measures to correct the deficiencies found in the required engineer audit.
At the collapse site, the remaining unstable wing of the concrete structure imploded on July 4. As of July 21, debris and rubble have been moved from the site to a warehouse or other place.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is leading an investigation into the collapse and reports that more than 200 concrete building components, including columns, beams, and panels, have been electronically identified, marked, and marked.
Before clearing the site, remote sensing determined the location of evidence fragments in the rubble. To do this, the researchers used a light detection and ranging technology called LiDAR, which creates a digital map. Technicians conduct high-resolution and low-resolution lidar scans on the site from the balconies of adjacent buildings in the north and south every day. Time-lapse cameras also record constantly changing scenes.
NIST cooperated with the rapid response research organization of the National Science Foundation Natural Disaster Engineering Research Infrastructure Project to install accelerometers to measure building vibrations and seismometers to measure ground vibrations in the 12-story Champlain Tower North Apartment. The apartment is almost South Tower. NIST stated that the data will be used to verify the computer modeling of Champlain Tann, rather than to assess the condition of the North Tower.
NIST is also forming its National Construction Safety Law team, which will lead the technical phase of the investigation. No name was announced. “Before launching a [technical] investigation, one condition we must consider is whether funds are available,” said NIST spokesperson Jennifer L. Huergo.
Nadine M. Post is ENR’s special editor in charge of architectural design and construction. He is an award-winning journalist with more than 40 years of experience in reporting on architectural-related trends, issues, innovations and challenging projects. Post has written articles for many industry giants, including seven winners of the ENR Excellence Award. She also reported on disasters, failures and attacks, including the bombing in 1993 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. An example of the story of the Post project includes the reconstruction of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa; the Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle’s Experience Music Project, Central Library, Bullitt Center, and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill’s book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration architects Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.
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