Editorial

Abstract

The first paper, which sets the scene for those that follow, is a briefing by Ratay (2015). The briefing is based on the keynote presentation he delivered at the ICE 5th International Conference on Forensic Engineering, London, 15-17 April 2013. The purpose and intent of the briefing is to draw our attention to what Ratay refers to as the 'rewards' that can arise from structural and construction failures. He does not use the term 'lessons learnt' I think deliberately, because he identifies two distinct features of failure. First, there is the need for awareness of the benefits to many areas of the construction industry that can accrue from the analysis of catastrophic failure, which may lead to the prevention of future failures. Second, there is the need for industry professionals, in our case the forensic engineer, to champion the effort for productive change. In other words if we do not push for appropriate change following a failure lessons will not be learnt. Ratay points out that this is often not as simple as it sounds due to the understandable emotion and knee-jerk reactions that may follow a catastrophe or, as Dickie shows in our final paper, commercial or time drivers lead to advice being ignored.The second paper is also a briefing and follows on from Ratay in that it illustrates how forensic investigation can lead to discoveries that could improve the standards applicable to critical vibration levels in buildings arising from, for example, traffic. Smith (2015) investigated reports from the residents of a house situated close to a road that vibration from traffic was high and had caused cracking to the house. Initial investigation showed that the expected vibration levels met the relevant standards. Testing was then carried out on site the results of which showed that there were unusually high 'shock pulses' occurring instead of the expected steady vibration. The short duration shock pulses were such that they were within both the human and building response range. Smith considers that although the combination of the ground conditions and road construction particular to the site were unusual the study shows that current standards should be modified accordingly to account for short rise time shocks. I think this briefing shows that 'failure rewards' need not necessarily be from catastrophes but can emanate equally from more humble origins. You will need to read the briefing to find out what the unusual cause was and to appreciate the physics.Malsh et al. (2015) introduces a new term to me -forensic information modelling, although I now understand from the paper that it was conceived in 2008. We hear a lot about building information modeling (BIM) and this paper shows us how, in time, the BIM model could be adapted to become a forensic (FIM?) model. However, for structures that were built some time ago, pre-BIM, the model must be created, either from scratch, or by combining information from different databases. The paper illustrates how this was done for three projects in the USA; the investigation into ...