Conceptual Investigation of the Northridge’s Earthquake Structural Failures on Steel MRF by the Aid of the Swiss Cheese Model

EasyChair Preprint 13377

Abstract

On 17th January 1994, the Northirdge earthquake, USA, struck the area causing unexpected damage on welded steel moment resting fames, WMRF. A systematic failure of brittle damage on beam-to column connections was observed. It was attributed to the design, construction, and inspection issues, as well as related to the seismic action characteristics. In the aftermath many changes was made; new constructional conformation, details, practices, and design methodologies was introduced. After 30 years of this benchmark earthquake, it is interesting to investigate this event from a different point of view, through a combined consideration of forensic engineering and risk management. The Swiss Cheese Accident Model provides an excellent framework for understanding how a series of minor/major errors or failures can align to result in a catastrophic event. Originally proposed by James Reason, the Swiss Cheese Accident Model depicts an organization's defenses against failure as multiple layers of Swiss cheese. These layers represent procedures, processes, and safeguards put in place to prevent accidents. However, just like slices of Swiss cheese, each layer possesses holes or weaknesses. When the holes in each layer momentarily align, a trajectory for accident causation becomes available, resulting in a system failure. The study presents an effort to approach the failure of the Northridge earthquake of steel WMRF through the view of the ΄΄Swiss Cheese΄΄ accidental model. This research adopted a qualitative case study approach. The investigation involved identifying the layers of defense and their associated holes, further on to discuss the weakness, the corrective and improvement actions.

Keyphrases: Forensic engineering and risk management, Northirdge earthquake, Steel moment resisting frames, Swiss Cheese accidental model

@booklet{EasyChair:13377,
  author    = {Anthimos Anastasiadis and Marius Mosoarca and Antonio Formisano},
  title     = {Conceptual Investigation of the Northridge’s Earthquake Structural Failures on Steel MRF by the Aid of the Swiss Cheese Model},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 13377},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}