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RE: Metrodome roof collapses in storm Minn. landmark co... - 12/13/2010 6:54:15 PM   
servantforuse


Posts: 6363
Joined: 3/8/2006
Status: offline 		I think that the metrodome roof has caved in 4 times now.

(in reply to stef)
Profile   Post #: 41
RE: Metrodome roof collapses in storm Minn. landmark co... - 12/13/2010 7:05:19 PM   
ThatDamnedPanda


Posts: 6060
Joined: 1/26/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

My God.  The dome couldn't handle 17 inches of snow in MINNESOTA?  Three breaches in the past? And it's inflatable?  What kind of idiot decided that it should keep on being used instead of rebuilt correctly, especially with three indications this could happen?

I just hope nobody was inside when it failed.  This is unforgiveably bad engineering.


Welcome to Minnesota, land of upside down logic.  Still, though, it's not as bad as it sounds. The roof that collapsed 3 previous times was redesigned, and the roof that collapsed yesterday was not the same as the one that failed 3 times in the 80s. Rebuilding the roof was not an option - they would have had to rebuild the entire stadium. Once they decided to build a stadium on the cheap, and committed to the inflatable roof, they were stuck with it. There was never any way for them to depart from that basic design concept.

You're right, it was bad engineering, but it was also experimental at the time it was designed. When it was first constructed, they were still learning how to build inflatable domes. It was only the 2nd major stadium with an inflatable roof, the first being the Pontiac Silverdome, built 7 years earlier. The Silverdome had worked out well, so they felt they had good reason to trust the basic design.

Having it collapse 3 times in the first year and a half came as a rude shock, of course, but they identified the design flaws, and corrected them. The fixes they made in 1983 were successful, and they didn't have any more problems with snow until yesterday. We had 28 inches of wet, heavy snow in '91, and the redesign held up fine, so they had every reason to believe the structure was safe. There are a lot of things to hate about that hideous monstrosity of a "stadium," but I think they had good reason to believe it was a safe venue.


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(in reply to DarkSteven)
Profile   Post #: 42
RE: Metrodome roof collapses in storm Minn. landmark co... - 12/13/2010 7:13:53 PM   
ThatDamnedPanda


Posts: 6060
Joined: 1/26/2009
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse

I think that the metrodome roof has caved in 4 times now.


4 1/2, I would say, and unfortunately never during a Vikings-Bears game. This is the 4th time it completely collapsed from a snowstorm, and it suffered a partial detumescence in the middle of a heavy windstorm during a baseball game back in the 80s. Officials delayed the game for a few minutes so they could run around screaming in terror, but once they got that out of their systems, they realized the roof was in no danger of collapse, so they continued the game.


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Panda, panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?


(in reply to servantforuse)
Profile   Post #: 43
RE: Metrodome roof collapses in storm Minn. landmark co... - 12/13/2010 9:30:58 PM   
TheHeretic


Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
From: California, USA
Status: offline 		What's the engineers worst case for designing a stadium roof to handle the weight of snow in Minneapolis? What's it going to cost to build one? What will it take to fix it, if those limits are exceeded by a 1000 year blizzard, instead of the 500 year standard the accountants could persuade them to settle on?

Now if the place is a pit, by all means build a new one (with local money, please), but if they'll have it sewn back up and reinflated in a week, a roof that fails without wrecking the whole place, or even the whole roof, doesn't seem so awful.

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(in reply to ThatDamnedPanda)
Profile   Post #: 44
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