Cooking oil cans in collapsed building - Taiwan

[Stopsignhank]

A pillar that supports a structure undoubtedly will be made of reinforced concrete, but an architect has to consider aesthetics as well as safety and may wish to enlarge the pillar without significantly increasing the weight, he said.

That was why the pillars of the Weiguan Jinlong complex had a layer of oil cans under the outer plaster to make them look thicker, Tai said.

The use of cooking oil cans for such purposes in construction was not illegal prior to September 1999, but since then styrofoam and formwork boards have been used instead, he said.

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201602070017.aspx

Or they could have just made the structural columns bigger........

 

[DrPizza]

Seeing the search and rescue leaves a couple of questions - did this building collapse due to faulty construction/building materials? Or did it collapse due to some other reason - earthquake, and built to standards from a couple of decades ago.


Reading that quoted section, it appears that the reason for the oil cans was to make the pillars look bigger. The question: bigger for aesthetic reasons? Or was the required size for structural integrity larger, and they cheated?

E.g., this would be like having one of those steel support pillars in a basement going up to a beam, and deciding that it just didn't look nice sitting there by itself, so 2' by 2' frame was built around it with furring strips, and covered with paneling. The outer treatment lends no strength to the structure, but was never intended to.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Now they know why, on those warm summer days, the whole place smelled like french fries.

Yum

 

[Harrod]

I didn't know VW was into construction.

 

[PandaBear]

Why weren't this be illegal? I have a hard time understanding why weren't they build with thinner support instead of padding it with fillers.

 

[lxskllr]

Doesn't look unreasonable to me as long as it was properly engineered. You see that around here, but with styrofoam. I don't think foam's any better than oil cans for that application.

 

[steppinthrax]

Seeing the search and rescue leaves a couple of questions - did this building collapse due to faulty construction/building materials? Or did it collapse due to some other reason - earthquake, and built to standards from a couple of decades ago.


Reading that quoted section, it appears that the reason for the oil cans was to make the pillars look bigger. The question: bigger for aesthetic reasons? Or was the required size for structural integrity larger, and they cheated?

E.g., this would be like having one of those steel support pillars in a basement going up to a beam, and deciding that it just didn't look nice sitting there by itself, so 2' by 2' frame was built around it with furring strips, and covered with paneling. The outer treatment lends no strength to the structure, but was never intended to.

My wife is from china. I'll tell you hands down, the oil cans were there to make them look bigger. It's a common practice in China to do these type of things. There was a news article someone posted here about a bridge in beijing that was literally made from trash. It was made from concrete, but later started cracking. Upon closer examination they put trash in to "fill" the concrete.

The chinese will find any way to save a penny!!!!!!

 

[steppinthrax]

Doesn't look unreasonable to me as long as it was properly engineered. You see that around here, but with styrofoam. I don't think foam's any better than oil cans for that application.

styrofoam has a much higher and more uniform compression strength than styrofoam. They use styrofoam as filler for highways...

Once that oil can begins to crush it will fail.

 

[lxskllr]

styrofoam has a much higher and more uniform compression strength than styrofoam. They use styrofoam as filler for highways...

Once that oil can begins to crush it will fail.

Foam doesn't have anything. It's for decoration only, and used as filler. And no, there isn't foam in highways...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Pretty scary. As much as I find things here have gotten WAY out of hand as far as building codes, like all the bureaucracy involved with permits and stuff, THIS is the reason why there are building codes, inspections, permits etc.

Even if this was partially aesthetic to make it look bigger when it does not need to be bigger, I doubt they considered the possibility of the metal contracting or expanding with temperature, and air pressure changes for example. Wonder how many of these walls were cracked already.

 

[steppinthrax]

Foam doesn't have anything. It's for decoration only, and used as filler. And no, there isn't foam in highways...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofoam

From 2009 to 2012, a Vaudreuil based expanded polymer manufacturing company provided over 625,000 cubic meters (over 22 million cubic feet) of geofoam for a new segment of highway 30 in the province of Quebec (Canada), in the Montreal area, making it the largest geofoam project in North America to date.

 

[lxskllr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofoam

They don't use it around here.

 

[core2slow]

I wouldn't be surprised if a chinese construction firm was behind all of this...

 

[steppinthrax]

They don't use it around here.

The advantage of foam is you get FILL without weight. Example I was building a retaining wall to contain a brick patio. I ended up dumping tons of fill dirt then tamper each layer before putting my 1" of paver sand. That was lot of manual labor. If I had foam blocks I could just throw them down and call it a day.

 

[Red Squirrel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofoam

From 2009 to 2012, a Vaudreuil based expanded polymer manufacturing company provided over 625,000 cubic meters (over 22 million cubic feet) of geofoam for a new segment of highway 30 in the province of Quebec (Canada), in the Montreal area, making it the largest geofoam project in North America to date.

They need to use this stuff here. Maybe we would not get so many water main breaks as it would add some insulating value. Since the highway is typically plowed right down to the asphalt the frost gets driven down much deeper.

 

[OutHouse]

Seeing the search and rescue leaves a couple of questions - did this building collapse due to faulty construction/building materials? Or did it collapse due to some other reason - earthquake, and .

earthquake?

The cooking oil cans found inside the pillars of a residential complex that collapsed in Tainan during an earthquake Saturday

 

[steppinthrax]

They need to use this stuff here. Maybe we would not get so many water main breaks as it would add some insulating value. Since the highway is typically plowed right down to the asphalt the frost gets driven down much deeper.

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-giant-foam-blocks-approach-slabs.html

Look at that first picture. You see where the original Hwy is. They need to build a new section and make that new section the same height as the old. The old method would be to pour dirt a gravel in there. You see they are just using huge ass foam blocks and stacking them. Much easier and it gets done faster. No tampering or compaction and no concern about compaction over time. You see they can easily make up for that 30 foot difference between the hole they created and the existing road.

Also you consider you have huge fucking trucks running over this stuff, so it has the strength!!!!

 

[Red Squirrel]

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-giant-foam-blocks-approach-slabs.html

Look at that first picture. You see where the original Hwy is. They need to build a new section and make that new section the same height as the old. The old method would be to pour dirt a gravel in there. You see they are just using huge ass foam blocks and stacking them. Much easier and it gets done faster. No tampering or compaction and no concern about compaction over time. You see they can easily make up for that 30 foot difference between the hole they created and the existing road.

Also you consider you have huge fucking trucks running over this stuff, so it has the strength!!!!

It's like Minecraft in real life!

 

[master_shake_]

styrofoam has a much higher and more uniform compression strength than styrofoam. They use styrofoam as filler for highways...

Once that oil can begins to crush it will fail.

what are this?

 

[NoTine42]

what are this?

If styrofoam > styrofoam
That means styrofoam > styrofoam > styrofoam

...basically it must be the strongest material man has ever created

 

[Gunbuster]

I feel like giving up square footage so my columns can look beefier and more prosperous (using garbage infill). Said no sane person ever...

 

[master_shake_]

If styrofoam > styrofoam
That means styrofoam > styrofoam > styrofoam

...basically it must be the strongest material man has ever created

it that's true aren't you stuck in an infinite loop?

 

[Matthiasa]

Well basically he is stating that Styrofoam gains infinite strength or something... clearly a false statement.

 

[Rumpltzer]

My family is from Tainan county, and half the family still lives in Tainan city. My understanding is that most of the significant damage is in just the one (17 story) building. Last I heard 38 people are dead and something like 117 are still missing.

They found those cans and the styrofoam within ours of that thing coming down.

It's terrible what people will do out of selfishness.

 

[olds]

http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/02/05/shanghai-wonderbridge-trash-collapses/