Probably all seen the film of the building that collapsed in a moderately strong earthquake, one that Taiwan building code should have shrugged off.
It was reinforced with
Tin Cans
Ok they look like 2.5 or 5 litre tin cans (cooking oil type) bit it was still tin cans rather than rebar.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35515749
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Looks likely to be bodged construction . . . . but void formers are frequently used in the centre of concrete slabs and bridges to reduce weight. You want reinforcement in the bottom and sometimes the top but not in the middle.
I've seen polystyrene myself in the construction of the bridges over the Malden Way Underpass on A3 not too far from Zeroland.
Don't worry though - there were lots of 40mm diameter steel bars in there too.
Last edited by: Dulwich Estate II on Sun 7 Feb 16 at 20:18
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To be fair they also used expanded polystyrene to reinforce some of the concrete. It was not all 2.5 litre tin cans.
Some heads will surely roll over this! This is shocking.
But the building seems to have fallen over - it's as if there were no decent foundations holding this in place.
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>> To be fair they also used expanded polystyrene to reinforce some of the concrete. It
>> was not all 2.5 litre tin cans.
>>
>> Some heads will surely roll over this! This is shocking.
>>
>> But the building seems to have fallen over - it's as if there were no
>> decent foundations holding this in place.
Even decent foundations move in an earthquake (they have to or they break up) so the building on top has to be built to survive the moving foundations. Tin cans dont flex, they crumple.
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I remember you could sense the movement at the top of an 18 storey halls of residence tower in Manchester. If the tower didn't flex with the wind it would be a structural issue. Thankfully I was on the 8th floor :-)
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You could feel a slight swaying in our tenth floor rooftop apartment yesterday.
Or maybe it was the large G & Ts and three bottles of Rioja
Mind you it was windy.
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>>Mind you it was windy.
Probably the onions in the paella.
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It does look like inadequate construction, but nothing to do with tin cans as I suspected.
This is borrowed from a tech mag
"Among the preliminary findings, the report highlights that there may have been no walls at the base floor, an apparent failure of steel coupler joints and potential lack of shear reinforcement for seismic design.
The reconnaisance report also dismissed rumours that tin cans, allegedly found within the concrete, might have been the cause of one of the collapses, saying that these looked to be more like formwork used in a non-structural façade to reduce its weight."
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Jerry Builders in Taiwan - Dulwich Estate II
