Engenharia forense aplicada às obras urbanas

Abstract

Structural accidents, although undesirable, always result in important lessons to improve the technique of designing and building. However, there is a scarcity of records about structural accidents in literature; thereby we lose the opportunity to learn from past mistakes. The forensic engineer is the professional that should deal with these accidents, to clarify the real causes of the collapse. In this way, the present study approaches the structural accidents, the role of forensic engineer, the investigation mechanisms; expert reports and other diagnose tools, legal issues involving the structural accidents and diseases, besides two case studies. These cases are particularly examined in order to extract lessons that may contribute to prevent further similar accidents. The first is the study of the fall in chain of the balconies of a residential building, where we found that the collapse was caused by negligence in the execution; and the second is the study of the collapse of a sheet pile wall of a building under construction, where the problems occurred in excavation planning, design and implementation. Through these studies, we verified that the collapse of a balcony of a building would probably lead all the balconies of a building to ruin, and one way to avoid similar problems would be the obligation by the law of minimum positive reinforcement in the case of cantilevered structures, as well as the requirement for an annual inspection plan for such structures. Furthermore, we also observed the need for mandatory excavation plans for buildings, as a mechanism to minimize the occurrence of the pole collapse.