A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure of some system from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. cascading failure is failure in a system of interconnected parts where the service provided depends on the operation of a preceding part and the failure of a preceding part can trigger

The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many other disciplines where total and irrecoverable loss occurs. Such failures are investigated using the methods of forensic engineering, which aims to isolate the cause or causes of failure. Forensic Engineering is the investigation of materials, products, Structures or components that fail or do not operate/function as

Contents 1 Structural failure 2 Computer failure 3 See also 4 References

Structural failure

Examples of catastrophic failure of engineered structures include:

• The Tay Rail Bridge disaster of 1879, where the center half mile of the bridge was completely destroyed while a train was crossing in a storm. The Tay Bridge (sometimes unofficially the Tay Rail Bridge) is a Railway Bridge approximately two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres The bridge was badly designed and its replacement was built as a separate structure upstream of the old.
• The Tacoma Narrows Bridge of 1940, where the main deck of the road bridge was totally destroyed by dynamic oscillations in a 40 mph wind. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a pair of mile-long Suspension bridges in the U
• The Banqiao Dam failure of 1975 and other dam failures April 27, 1987. The Banqiao Reservoir Dam ( and Shimantan Reservoir Dam ( are among 62 Dams in Zhumadian Prefecture of China 's Henan Province that
• The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse of 1981, where a suspended walkway in a hotel lobby collapsed completely, killing many people on the structure and those below. Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on July 17, 1981 in Kansas City Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring more
• The Space Shuttle Challenger of 1986, in which an O-ring of the rocket booster failed, and the entire structure was lost,
• The Space Shuttle Columbia of 2003, where damage to a wing caused at take-off caused total loss on re-entry
• The total collapse of the multi-span I-35W Mississippi River Bridge on August 1, 2007

Computer failure

The term catastrophic failure is occasionally (and erroneously) used in computer software to indicate an unexpected error from which the system cannot meaningfully recover. STS-51-L was the twenty-fifth flight of the American Space Shuttle program, which marked the first time a civilian had flown aboard the Space Shuttle STS-107 was a Space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Columbia, launched January 16, 2003. The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (officially known simply as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane steel Truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across

See also

• Structural failure
• Structural collapse

References

• What Do You Care What Other People Think?, Richard Feynman, Ralph Leighton (contributor), W W Norton, 1988, ISBN 0-553-17334-0
• Peter R. Structural failure refers to loss of the load -carrying capacity of a component or member within a Structure or of the structure itself Structural engineering is a field of Engineering dealing with the analysis and design of Structures that support or resist loads Structural engineering is What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character (1988 is the second of two books consisting of transcribed and edited oral reminiscences Lewis, Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879, Tempus, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-3160-9.

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