27/04/2016
The most common causes of structural failures are:
(1) Poor communication between the various design professionals involved, e.g. engineers involved in conceptual design and those involved in the supervision of ex*****on of works.
(2) poor communication between the fabricators and erectors.
(3) Bad workmanship, which is often the result of failure to communicate the design decisions to the persons, involved in executing them.
(4) Compromises in professional ethics and failure to appreciate the responsibility of the profession to the community at large could also result in catastrophic failures.
(5) lack of appropriate professional design and construction experience, especially when novel structures are needed.
(6) complexity of codes and specifications leading to misinterpretation and misapplication.
(7) unwarranted belief in calculations and in specified extreme loads and properties.
(8) inadequate preparation and review of contract and shop drawings.
(9) poor training of field inspectors.
(10) compressed design and/or construction time.