I was at a presentation this week where the speaker said that many
buildings don't fail in earthquakes from the a lack of structural
design, they fail from piping failures due to not accomodating the
stresses that occur due to earthquakes. By that he meant that a broken
gas line would cause a building to blow up, a broken sprinkler line
would prevent the sprinkler system from putting out a fire, etc.
 
Should I mention he was selling products used to allow piping to
accomodate the forces caused by earthquakes? Flexible piping fittings
used to bridge building joints. At the beginning of his talk he told us
he wasn't an engineer and that he was the regional or national sales
manager for the manufacturer. Call me skeptical.
 
Anyway, his firm would be one to buy an ad in such a magazine. I get
e-mails from some outfit at the rate of about one a week telling me
about flexible pipe fittings or pipe supports. 
 
Knowledge of failure modes is a very important part of proper design
but, you're right, probably not something you're going to be able to
hang a lot of ads on. Good for structural engineers and building
demolition experts.
 
________________________________

From:  [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 4:35 PM

 > 
But it appears to me that there is no regular journal which covers
similar "deaths," for buildings and structures.  As someone on the list
pointed out a few years ago "Failure Magazine" would indeed be a hard
advertising sell, wouldn't it?  
 
C

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