Hyatt Regency Hotel Essay

The purpose of this report is to understand the most probable cause of the structural collapse of the Hyatt Regency hotel, Kansas City on Friday 17th July, 1981.
The structure of the 40 story Hyatt Regency hotel was designed by Gallium-Colaco International Inc. (G.C.E. Inc.). The hotel was divided into three main sections: a high-rise tower section, a function block, and a connecting open atrium area. The main attraction of the hotel was the atrium lobby which was spanned by three walkways at the second, third and fourth floors hanging by the roof. The walkways were considered to be a great location to watch any event happening in the atrium below. On 17th July a tea dance contest was being held at the lobby and many people were standing,

The connectors holding these rods failed. The inspection committee concluded that this disaster was result of a pure negligence on the end of the engineering team:
1) In the proposed design there was a miscalculation of the weight of the walkways and the capacity of the nuts to bear them. As per the investigation the walkways failed to meet the requirements of Kansas City building codes and would have eventually failed.
2) An incident took place during the construction where the roof of the atrium collapsed due to the failure of roof connectors on northern end. It may have been a forewarning of the future which definitely indicated some flaws in the design but neither the architectural design nor engineering work was reviewed by G.C.E.
3) Lack of proper communication between the G.C.E engineers and Havens (fabricator) who made the layout and design. After construction difficulties faced by fabricators the design was changed, G.C.E engineers shared preliminary drawing as per the changes discussed with Havens for feedback which Havens considered the final drawings and started working on