When a structure fails, the fallout can be frightening, disruptive, and even deadly. And yet, these disasters also teach us valuable lessons about the possibilities of engineering--and how to make our future projects safer. In the same way that a military defeat might provoke strategic changes and new approaches, engineering failures pave the way for improvement in the ways that we design, build, and maintain our technological systems. But first, we must figure out what went wrong. On the evening of Friday, July 17, 1981, a band was playing in the atrium of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel. About 1,600 people had gathered for that night's popular tea dance. Women in elegant dresses and men in pressed suits danced on the atrium floor, while observers admired the festivities from walkways suspended above. Suddenly, the highest walkway tore loose and, along with the walkway two levels below, crashed to the atrium floor. Over 100 people were killed, and many others were injured. Speculation began immediately as to the cause of this tragedy, which remains to this day one of the worst structural failures in US history. In the aftermath of the accident, United Press International sent word to its thousands of news outlets that "foot-tapping revelers" might have touched off a rhythmic vibration which caused the walkways to collapse. The New York Times story was headlined: "Before Hotel Disaster, Walkway Swayed to the Rhythm of Dancers." Some officials were quoted as saying the walkways might have been overcrowded and unable to bear the combined stressors of weight and movement. None of that turned out to be true. In Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach, you will go behind the scenes of painstaking and captivating investigations that not only reveal what actually caused the tragedy in the Hyatt Regency that night, but also explore the catalysts for more than 24 other epic engineering failures. Your professor, civil engineer and award-winning educator Stephen Ressler, PhD, reveals the story behind each disaster by demonstrating the scientific and engineering issues involved with easy-to-follow explanations accompanied by fascinating videos, live demonstrations, and hundreds of custom-made models and graphics. Professor Ressler also examines the less technical and more human components of error--the individual personalities and sometimes dysfunctional organizations that led to catastrophe. In addition, he asks a startling question: Can we move forward as a civilization without these engineering failures?
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