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双语热点:美国公寓楼倒塌是天灾还是人祸?结构工程师分析建筑物突然倒塌的原因

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美国佛罗里达州迈阿密公寓垮塌事故已造成24人死亡,121人下落不明。尽管以往也有一些桥梁、立交桥和正在施工中的建筑倒塌的事故发生,但在没有炸弹或地震的情况下,在使用中的建筑发生如此次一般大面积倒塌的情况却十分罕见。造成建筑物突然倒塌有哪些原因呢?听听3名结构工程师的分析。

3 structural engineers explain why a building like the Surfside, Florida condo might suddenly collapse

At least 20 people are dead and 120 are missing after the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida abruptly collapsed. As rescuers continue to search for buried victims, investigators have started sifting through building records, videos, and physical wreckage to determine what, precisely, caused the structure to fall.

近日,佛罗里达州迈阿密戴德县瑟夫赛德镇的尚普兰塔南公寓发生瞬间垮塌,至少有 20 人死亡,120 人失踪。随着救援人员持续寻找掩埋的受害者,调查人员也开始详细查阅建筑记录、视频和物理残骸,以确定导致结构倒塌的确切原因。

While it's extremely uncommon for a building to collapse in the absence of a natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane, there are a handful of reasons why it could happen.

虽然建筑物在没有地震或飓风等自然灾害的情况下倒塌的情况极为罕见,但发生这种情况的原因有很多。

Some of the most likely causes include poor maintenance or overloading part of a structure with too much weight. Buildings are designed to hold up to twice as much load as is deemed necessary - but that strength decreases as a building ages and deteriorates over time.

最有可能的原因包括维护不善或结构的某个部分超载。建筑物的设计承重是必要承重的两倍——但这种强度会随着建筑物的老化和退化而降低。

"Very simply, structures collapse when the load that is placed upon them exceeds the strength of the structure," Ronald Hamburger, a structural engineer with the national engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz, & Heger said.

“很简单,当施加在结构上的载荷超过结构的强度时,结构就会倒塌,”国家工程公司 Simpson, Gumpertz, & Heger 的结构工程师 Ronald Hamburger 说道。

Erosion under a building's foundation, a corroded exterior, or a design flaw could also make a structure more vulnerable to collapse.

建筑物地基下的腐蚀、受侵蚀的外部结构或设计缺陷也可能使结构更容易倒塌。

Here's how five problems may contribute to building collapses like the one in Surfside, Florida.

以下五个原因,有可能导致像佛罗里达州瑟夫赛德公寓那样发生倒塌。

The building isn't properly maintained

建筑物缺乏妥善维护

Most often, a sudden collapse can be traced back to poor maintenance, experts said. That may include a lack of new paint, or a failure to shore up cracks in concrete and eliminate rust and stagnant water.

专家说,大多数情况下,建筑物突然倒塌的原因是维护不善。这可能包括没有重新粉刷油漆,或未能弥补混凝土中的裂缝并消除锈迹和积水。

"You can have a perfectly designed building, and a perfectly constructed building per the engineer drawings, but if that building doesn't receive proper maintenance, that is an issue," said Joel Figueroa-Vallines, a structural engineer from Orlando and member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

来自奥兰多的结构工程师、美国土木工程师协会组织成员乔尔•菲格罗亚-瓦林斯 (Joel Figueroa-Vallines) 说:“你的建筑可以拥有完美的设计,并且完全按照工程师图纸建造,但如果这座建筑没有得到适当的维护,那就会产生问题。”

"Buildings are like anything else - the cars we drive, or even ourselves as human beings," he added. "If we don't maintain ourselves, we don't age well."

“建筑物就像其他任何东西——我们驾驶的汽车,甚至我们人类自己,”他补充道。 “如果我们不保养自己,我们就会老去。”

In Miami-Dade County, where Champlain Towers South is located, buildings are recertified 40 years after their construction. Builders finished the condo in 1981, and it was due for its 40-year inspection this year.

在尚普兰塔南倒塌的公寓所在的迈阿密戴德县,建筑物在建造 40 年后需要重新获得认证。这座倒塌的公寓于 1981 建成,计划将于今年进行完工40 年的检查。

Some experts said that's too long to wait.

一些专家表示,维护周期太长了。

"If maintenance or inspection happened every five years, think of how much safer that would be," said Kit Miyamoto, a structural engineer with Miyamoto International based in Sacramento, California.

如果每五年进行一次维护或检查,想想这会更安全,”位于加利福尼亚州萨克拉门托的宫本国际公司的结构工程师 Kit Miyamoto说。

Part of the structure gets overloaded

部分结构过载

A collapse can occur if there's more weight on one part of a building than the structure is designed to handle - what's known as overloading.

如果建筑物某一部分的重量超过该结构的设计承受能力,即所谓的超载,就会发生倒塌。

In 2015, six people died in Berkeley, California when an apartment balcony collapsed during a party. While part of the balcony had rotted, Miyamoto said, the excessive weight catalyzed the fall.

2015 年,加利福尼亚州伯克利的公寓阳台在派对期间倒塌,造成 6 人死亡。Miyamoto认为:虽然阳台的一部分已经腐烂,但超载的重量催化了倒塌。

Overloading also contributed to a factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh eight years ago.

八年前,超载还导致孟加拉国达卡的工厂倒塌。

Land underneath the foundation moves or erodes

地基下方的土地移动或侵蚀

Buildings "very rarely naturally fall," Miyamoto said, adding, "maybe every five years or so you hear of an abrupt collapse worldwide."

建筑物“很少会自然倒塌,” Miyamoto说,“可能每五年左右全世界就会有一次建筑物突然倒塌的消息。”

But sometimes, wind and running water can erode the soil underneath a building's foundation, or cause the land to sink. When these events happen, "it creates a vacuum that would definitely cause an instability," Miyamoto said.

但有时,风和流水会侵蚀建筑物地基下的土壤,或导致土地下沉。当这些事件发生时,“建筑物下方会产生一个真空,这肯定会导致建筑物不稳定,” Miyamoto说。

In the case of the Surfside condo - which is built on top of reclaimed wetlands - it's possible that a large amount of groundwater is flowing back and forth under the building, which could exacerbate erosion, Figueroa-Vallines said.

Figueroa-Vallines说,就 瑟夫赛德公寓而言——它建在开垦的湿地之上——有可能大量地下水在建筑物下方来回流动,这可能会加剧侵蚀。

Steel and concrete deteriorates over time

钢材和混凝土会随着时间的推移而退化

All three engineers agreed that deterioration could play an outsized role in building collapses. As building materials interact with chemicals in the air around them, those materials start to break down.

三位工程师都同意,建筑材料的退化可能是建筑物倒塌的重大因素。随着建筑材料与周围空气中的化学物质发生作用,这些材料开始分解。

"Buildings and structures located in coastal environments where they are repeatedly exposed to salt-laden air experience more corrosion than structures located in central US," Hamburger said.

“位于沿海环境中的建筑暴露在含盐高的空气中,比位于美国中部的建筑更容易受到腐蚀,” Hamburger说。

After four or five decades, a concrete and steel structure is vulnerable to substantial rusting, he added.

他补充说,经过四五十年后,混凝土和钢结构很容易大量生锈。

That's why continually repainting a seaside building is critical, because the coating protects it from damage.

"Salt essentially melts away the concrete," Figueroa-Vallines said.

这就是为什么反复重新粉刷海滨建筑至关重要的原因,因为涂层可以保护它免受损坏。

“盐从本质上会融化混凝土,” Figueroa-Vallines 说。

The building has a design flaw

建筑存在设计缺陷

Typically, buildings are designed with redundancies - if part of the structure fails or weakens to the point that it can't support the building's weight anymore, that load gets redistributed somewhere else.

通常,建筑物采用冗余设计 —— 如果结构的一部分出现事故或减弱到无法再支撑建筑物的重量,则该部分重量会重新分配到其他地方。

These local accidents can be caused by several factors - a fire, corrosion, or even a truck backing up into a weight-bearing column in the building's basement, Hamburger said.

Hamburger认为,局部事故可能由多种因素引起——火灾、腐蚀,甚至是卡车倒车撞到建筑物地下室的承重柱上。

Normally, they shouldn't cause a catastrophic failure like the one at Champlain Towers South, he added. But some older buildings lack redundancies that stop local accidents from cascading into bigger, building-wide problems.

他补充说,通常情况下,这些局部事故不会导致像尚普兰塔南公寓那样的灾难性事故。但一些较旧的建筑缺乏冗余设计,无法阻止局部事故演变成更大的、威胁整个建筑的问题。

词语注释:

condominium: 公寓(套房私有,其他地方属业主共有)

deteriorates: 变坏; 恶化; 退化;

例句:

After a few years' planting, the quality of the potato crop deteriorates.

土豆种了几年之后就会退化。

erosion: (河流、气候等的)侵蚀,腐蚀; (权威、权利、信心等的)逐渐丧失,削弱; (支持的)减少; (价值的)降低; (货币的)贬值;

redundancies :(因劳动力过剩而造成的)裁员,解雇; 多余; 累赘;

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