Documenting and analyzing construction failures

A research project was conducted to explore construction failure investigation techniques and processes to determine whether they were adequate and to develop failure investigation guidelines. Data was collected on failures and failure investigation techniques from surveying 115 members of the engineering and construction industry. Construction failure case studies were created using documentation provided by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, state offices of safety and health, and forensic engineers. The construction failure case studies were analyzed to determine how these organizations conduct their investigations and to develop guidelines that can be used for construction failure investigations. This article provides: (1) description of the methods used for the research; (2) results obtained from the industry survey; (3) summary of the results of an investigation into case studies on construction failures; (4) analysis of the results; (5) discussion on construction failure investigative techniques; (6) guidelines developed during the research project for investigating and documenting failures; and (7) recommended format for reporting the findings of failure investigations.