Hartford Civic Arena
Roof Collapse
Group 16
Overview:
• Introduction.
• Structural design.
• Causes of collapse.
• Conclusions.
• Sources.
Introduction.
• Collapse occurred 18th of January 1978
• Large snowstorm.
• The roof collapsed while Arena was not in use.
• No fatalities or injuries.
Structural design:
• Fraoli, Blum & Yesselman, Engineers were
employed to design arena.
• The engineers used an innovative design.
• It was based on space frame design.
• Spanning 91.44m x 109.72m.
• 25.29m above floor level.
• The predicted deflection = 330.2mm at midpoint
and 150mm at edges.
Structural design:
• Differed from standard space frame design:
• Cross-shaped built up sections used.
• Top horizontal bars intersected at different
points to diagonal bars rather than at the
same point.
• Short posts on the nodes supported the
roofing panels.
• Four columns were 13.71m inside roof edges.
• The space frame was not pre-chambered.
Structural design: Diagrams;
Causes of collapse:
Three contributary factors
• Structural design.
• Construction.
• Project Management.
Structural design:
• Cross-shaped members.
• Intersection of top horizontal and diagonal
bars, not connected at the same point.
• Inaccurate computer analysis, torsional
buckling not considered.
• Top layer’s interior and exterior compression
members overloaded.
• Very little redundancy.
• No independent recheck of structural design.
Project management;
•
No overall project manager responsible for the
entire project.
•
No qualified structural engineer employed to
perform inspections of structure during
construction.
Overall, no hierarchy of responsibility
•
Construction:
• Connections were not fabricated or
assembled to design specifications.
• Excessive deflections noted on ground
assembly.
• After frame was complete, deflection was
measured to be twice that predicted by
computer analysis (660.4mm).
• No responsibility taken by contractor
towards the performance of the project.
Conclusions:
• Employ Project Manager to take responsibility
for entire project.
• Employ Qualified Structural Engineer to
investigate and report structural deficiencies.
• Recheck design calculations and analysis, when
unexpected deformations occur.
• Investigate any possible structural deficiencies.
• Include as large amount of redundancy as is
feasible.
• Independently check design calculations.
Sources:
• Hartford Civic Arena Roof Collapse.
Rachel Martin.
• Probability-Based Load Criteria for Structural
Design.
Bruce R. Ellingwood.
• Failure Case Studies in Civil Engineering
Education.
Rachel Martin.