From the course: Practical Engineering
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The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
From the course: Practical Engineering
The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
- In the summer of 1981 the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri hosted a large party in the multistory atrium area. During the event suspended walkways on the second and fourth floors collapsed killing over 100 people and injuring over 200 more. At the time the accident was the worst structural failure in U.S. history. In the wake of the disaster investigators discovered a change to the original design of the walkways that was proposed by the fabricator and mistakenly approved by the structural engineer. What at first glance seemed like a subtle adjustment to the design turned out to be the root cause of the failure. Two suspended walkways span the atrium in the Hyatt Regency with the second floor walkway directly below the fourth floor walkway. Each was supported by a series of box skirters suspended by hanger rods and retained by nuts and washers. The original design called for a single pair of hanger rods which would pass through each fourth floor girder to the second…
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