Structural integrity and failure
Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed structural load without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to prevent failures in future designs.
Collapsed barn at Hörsne, Gotland, Sweden
The Pyramid at Meidum was the second built by the Egyptians around 2600 BC. It suffered from many structural defects, causing it to collapse during construction and leaving the inner core standing in a pile of rubble, which provided one of the earliest known lessons in large-scale building.
Building collapse due to snow weight
The Dee bridge after its collapse
A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many other disciplines in which total and irrecoverable loss occurs, such as a head crash occurrence on a hard disk drive.
Original Tay Bridge from the north
Fallen Tay Bridge from the north