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Metal Warehouse Roof Collapse Investigation

The project embodied by this presentation is an investigation of a roof collapse on a metal warehouse. The investigation was done by the University of New Hampshire students as their senior design project. The project team worked collaboratively with Simpson, Gumpertz and Heger. The warehouse being investigated was built in 1981 and is in Kingston, Massachusetts. The collapse occurred along the east side of the building abutting the new section of the warehouse.   The project began with a virtual site investigation.  Because the collapse occurred in 2009 the only option for the senior project group was a virtual investigation. The virtual investigation consisted of a slideshow, along with the assistance of SG&H.  Two site investigations occurred in which ideas/potential modes of collapse were highlighted.  After the virtual investigations, the project team brainstormed multiple theories.     The next portion entailed analysis to prove that the suspected mode of failure did, in fact, cause collapse. To begin, a model was created. Using a variety of information, SG&H sourced documents, codebooks, and historical data, the best representation of the structure was produced.  The expected loads were then generated by using NOAA weather data for snow loads and the assumption made by the group.

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