The responsibility of each structural engineer is to ensure that any given building is safe and structurally sound. This can happen during the initial design of the building or during inspections of existing buildings. For steel structures, it is difficult to imagine that they will fail due to the strength of the building materials themselves. However, there are several different ways to make steel structures fail, and most failures can be prevented through excellent structural engineering practices. This is the main way that steel structures may fail.
Insufficient connection strength
Almost every time you hear that a steel structure fails, it is due to a connection problem. When designing joints and connections, structural engineers must invest a lot of thought and detail to ensure they are sufficiently strong. Calculating the strength of seams and connections is a tedious process, and it is important for structural engineers and construction professionals to keep the same page. Any type of miscommunication of bolts or other materials used can lead to insufficient strength and possible failure.
Stretch failure
Another possible failure of steel structures is to apply too much tension to any given member. It takes a lot of effort to cause this type of failure, and in most cases, it only occurs when the structural engineer makes a mistake during the design process. Tension failure is recognized as the most dangerous type of failure. Therefore, every structural engineer attaches great importance to it during the design phase.
Too much weight on the beam
The beam may also fail in the steel structure. It's very simple to figure out when this type of failure will occur because it happens when the weight of the beam exceeds the weight limit it can handle. Lateral torsional buckling is the main concern of every structural engineering company, as it involves predicting where the maximum weight will be placed on the beam. The strongest point of the beam is in the center of the beam, so if the weight of the two ends of the beam is too large to handle, it may buckle and cause the beam to fail.
