Page 209 - Forensic Structural Engineering Handbook

THE ENGINEERING INVESTIGATION PROCESS 6.11

FIGURE 6.9 A load test of the entire roof of this school gymnasium was necessary in order to
assure the public that the repaired structure was safe.

clues and for corroborating other evidence. Useful guidelines for eyewitness accounts can
be found in Ref. 6.

Document Review
It will be necessary to track down all relevant documents regarding the structure. Common
sources of project documents are given in Table 6.5. These documents include particularly
the original design documents and calculations, shop drawings, as-built drawings, and any
document showing subsequent modifications and maintenance. It is critical to determine
whether the actual structure deviated from these documents. Inspection reports relating to
fabrication and construction as well as material testing reports and certifications will be
critical to establishing an actual in-place capacity for structural elements.
Contracts, specifications, project correspondence, daily field reports, and modifications
to the contract documents will be most useful in establishing whether roles and responsi-
bilities were being performed correctly during the design and construction process. This
will be critical for understanding the progress of the structure’s failure.
Table 6.6 contains a detailed list of documents that may be useful in failure investigations.
Documents of the nonstructural trades (e.g., architectural, mechanical, and electrical)
are often useful for determining the dead loads on the structure. In addition, nonstructural
elements may play an unintentional role in the structure’s load-bearing capacity, either sup-
plementing the structural frame or debilitating it.
The construction documents often contain key date information critical to understand-
ing how and when certain decisions and actions were taken that impacted the structure’s
performance.