Do We Need a Diploma to Become a Contractor?

Why Does the Retaining Wall Collapse?

The retaining wall collapsed in Istanbul, there were those who fell under it, I was sad.

I remember the years I worked as a project engineer. There are retaining walls at the edges of the approach plates of bridges, viaducts, and near the entrances and exits of the culverts for the creeks on the road route. It's not that hard to calculate, but it's not that easy either.

In fact, retaining walls are serious structures. It is necessary to make the calculation under many load combinations. It is necessary to calculate some reinforcements according to the maximum load, and some reinforcements according to a separate load combination, taking into account that the soil in front of them can be excavated. If there will be sand fill behind it, other loads will affect it, if there will be soil fill. First of all, it is necessary to determine the characteristic features of the filling material with laboratory tests. Some soils give a great load to the wall, especially when wet. It behaves differently in earthquakes, different in rain, different in winter when the ground freezes, and different in spring when it thaws. It is different if the groundwater level is high, and completely different if the water level is variable.

Soil mechanics courses at the university are quite difficult. Soil mechanics is a separate branch, in fact, it is necessary to specialize. We cannot calculate until the ground reports are prepared and given to us by the experts. No calculations can be made just because there is such a ground here. First, where the building will be built, samples are taken with special drilling machines, examined in the laboratory, and then the report is issued. However, from the report we can understand the soil properties. We calculate accordingly.

If it is not done according to his knowledge, you can stay under an ordinary wall:

Why did I tell you this? If a retaining wall has collapsed and someone is underneath it, I think it's an indication that something is wrong. Maybe most of us don't care, we may be going to our house by passing a wall every day, you may be thinking, how important a structure can it be. Maybe it doesn't draw your attention at all, you don't have the slightest thought about the wall, at that moment, who knows what goes through your mind as you pass by. But your eye does not see the wall.

If it is not properly calculated, it is destroyed, maybe it will collapse on you, you have no idea.

Life is full of such details that should be taken into account, there are so many details on our right and left, we all take it for granted, we don't care about some things. But lives are suddenly lost, when we least expect it. Destiny! It is, isn't it, some of you may think so.

Maybe the contractor who built that wall there told the masters that the wall is just the way it should go, he didn't even have the calculations made. He may even have told the master to do something like this. Who is to blame when it is destroyed? Will it be enough to find the contractor and grab him by the collar? Is the young engineer in the municipality that gave the building permit guilty? Is the retaining wall visible on the building permit? Is it in the project?

Problem is all about System and Understanding:

Event system problem, understanding problem. You know, in order to open a pharmacy, they want the diploma of someone who has graduated from the faculty of pharmacy. It hangs on the wall. Even if the employees are not pharmacists, the diploma is considered sufficient and a workplace license is issued.

Do you need a diploma to be a contractor? No! You have enough money. Yes, you have to put a responsible engineer, even if it's for show, but how knowledgeable are the young engineers who graduated from all the universities opened in every city like grass grows in the field? How experienced?

If he is the contractor who does everything according to the book, there is also a license area in different ways, but I will not go into those issues now.

Conclusion:

Yes, it is very sad that the retaining wall has been demolished, some things are done with good intentions, of course, our specifications have been changed in accordance with the requirements of the age, the building inspection application has been made compulsory, but the wall has still been demolished. So what has been done is not enough, something more needs to be done. If it needs to be corrected, repaired or rebuilt by examining everything that was made in the past, made according to old specifications, and putting it on a certain program, we should do it without wasting time.

If the expected possible Istanbul earthquake happens before we can take the necessary precautions, our pain and losses will be devastating.

I also talk about how we checked buildings when I was a quality control engineer for post-earthquake retrofitting in Erzincan.

For now, love and respect from Moscow.