/sci/ - Science & Math

>the assumptions made in determining the revised wind loading were inadequate, in that they assumed all windows were closed. However, if the glass in a window had broken, or somebody had gone out leaving a window open, a wall panel could suffer pressure on one side and suction on the other, to an extent that the panels on the upper levels of the building might still be sucked out
>construction defects (failure to build as designed) had left unfilled gaps between floors and walls throughout, hidden only by skirting boards and ceiling paper, which left the building without fire separation (or acoustic separation) between flats. Tall blocks of flats in the UK are permitted relatively narrow staircases because the requirement for full fire separation between floors means that in theory, it is safer for people above the fire to stay in their flats rather than walk down the stairs. (This theory does not hold where the fire separation fails, as happened in the Grenfell Tower fire). Without fire separation it would be necessary for all people above a fire to escape, which would not be possible using the existing narrow staircases.
>further construction defects had led to the whole weight supported by each wall panel being supported by the panel beneath by two steel rods, instead of being spread evenly along the panel, leading to extremely high stresses that the concrete was not designed to withstand
the strengthening brackets which had been fitted during the rebuilding were in many cases not properly attached, since they were fastened to hollow-core slabs, and in many cases they had been bolted only to the thin concrete surrounding the cores, which was inadequate to take the stress.[7]
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