Understanding Failures, an Useful Tool in Structural Robustness Evaluation

Learning from failures is a powerful educational tool for all civil and structural engineers. Although structural designers do not wish to discuss their shortcomings and mistakes from their activity a detailed analysis of failure cases is an instructive way of preventing similar events. A first step for the design of robust structure resistant to different loads is the knowledge of the failure mechanism of existing constructions. The aim of the paper is to collect and to synthesize information on damages/ failures/ collapses of structures from different countries.