Wikipedia:Valued picture candidates/HRWalkway.svg

Hyatt Regency walkway connection detail edit

Original - (a) Original connection design of the St. Louis Hyatt Regency (b) Modified design that ultimately led to the failure of the walkway

Not for voting - Failed cross beam discovered by investigators.

Reason: A little background is needed here. For civil engineering students, two of the most cited structural failures in the United States are that of Galloping Gertie and the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. In the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in St. Louis, hung two elevated walkways that connected two sides of the building through the atrium. The two walkways were initially designed to be supported by rods from the ceiling girders, with one nut on each rod holding the upper walkway (a) and another nut below that holding the lower walkway. Due to construction issues, the design was changed to that shown in (b). Unfortunately, this meant that the nut previously used only to support the upper walkway now had to support both the weight of the upper and lower walkways. In addition, the cross beams of the upper walkway were also taking twice the intended load. The cross beams were designed as double C-channels welded together. The weld and channels were only designed to take the weight of one walkway, but the design change doubled that. On the night of collapse, 2,000 people were gathered in the atrium, many of them on the walkways. Due to the excessive weight, the walkways collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring 200 others. It was the worst structural failure (in terms of lives lost) at the time (and, as far as I'm aware, the worst unintentional structural failure to date). It shows how such a small difference can have a drastic outcome. The image is a simple representation of a death sentence to more than a hundred people. Please see the article for more information; it's really a fascinating story. Also listed below the nominated image is the resulting (failed) cross beam.
Articles this image appears in: Structural engineering, Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
Creator: DTR
Time Requirement: Y Added to Hyatt Regency walkway collapse June 2007. ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 18:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Image Page Traffic Statistics: March 2009

Support as nominator ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 18:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support Noodle snacks (talk) 23:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Would it be possible to remove the unneeded capitals? "Original design" and "Actual construction" would surely be better? J Milburn (talk) 19:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I've made the request here, unless someone else wants to jump on it. I assume it's a pretty quick fix. Assume you'll be voting on it as has been suggested with the above comment. ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 23:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 06:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, now my concerns have been met. High quality, informative drawing that adds a lot to the article. Lacks any wow-factor, meaning it's not FP worthy, but fits right in here. J Milburn (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Wow factor is not an en-wp criteria. Noodle snacks (talk) 01:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, I'm sorry, I realise. That's not what I meant, I phrased it rather badly. J Milburn (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Just wanted to say that I only made a vector trace of the work. The original creator's/uploader's details are on the source image page. It was the first image I traced in the Graphics Lab, so I hope it is of some value! =) --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 19:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Bearing that in mind, I support.

More input, please. ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 06:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support. MER-C 08:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support very informative—Chris! _ct 19:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose not clear to me what the 2P, P etc means. The caption doesn't explain it, the image itself could (in my opinion) be knocked up in less than an hour in Visio or similar. This does has encyclopedic value, but it makes me wonder how many "technical" drawings I could create in a few moments with a simple caption that may be considered similarly. Yes, the story behind the failure is of note but this image for me isn't particularly special. The Rambling Man (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P = Pressure. MER-C 13:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, I should have said it's not clear to a non-expert. My masters degree in engineering should have this P covered...! The Rambling Man (talk) 15:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Techincally, P = load (pressure depends on x-sectional area of a given material, which in this case could be anything; the details aren't specific). P & F are the two letters we typically use to designate load (F for force and P for... well nobody ever told me; it's just what we do). But you're right; I will change that. ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 18:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:HRWalkway.svg ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 15:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]