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Failure Case Studies in Structural Engineering Courses and Professional Practice

  • Research Article - Civil Engineering
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Abstract

The vast majority of collapses cause only economic losses and are therefore unknown to either academics or engineers. Hence, the causes of the collapse that may be quite trivial are not discussed by the technical and academic community. Sometimes there is a connection between engineering malpractice, highlighted by forensic investigations, and some approaches of academic teaching; to this extent, case studies of collapsed structures could be a helpful tool if included in academic courses helping academic teaching to be properly oriented. In this paper, three case studies of engineering malpractice are discussed from this point of view. It showed that (a) misunderstandings on the basic concepts of structural mechanics may originate collapses; (b) oriented teaching could avoid some of these misunderstandings.

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Brencich, A., Gnecco, M. Failure Case Studies in Structural Engineering Courses and Professional Practice. Arab J Sci Eng 37, 2113–2126 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-012-0292-4

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