Swimming Olympic distances

Among the new sports included among the Summer Olympic Games is marathon swimming. It’s a 10-kilometer (6.3 mile) race in open water.

I joined a group of reporters invited by the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee on a field trip this morning to see the facility in Shunyi, which is a northeastern suburb of Beijing.

The facility is home to all canoeing, kayaking and marathon swimming events.

I could only see the whitewater kayaking course from a distance but could see the water whooshing out of the final gates.

What was interesting was to see the circular 2.5 kilometer course for canoeing and open-water marathon swimming. Organizers said the water is cycled fresh through the course every 40 days and comes from the aquifer below the site rather than a river. The water had a bit of seaweed in it but overall relatively clean, as lake water goes, and organizers insisted that tests have shown it to meet all standards necessary to hold events.

In any case, there’s a short video clip above of Danni Zheng, an Olympics media officer, speaking about the marathon swimming event.

Comments

[A B]

Preliminary Observations about Schools that Collapsed

1. The schools that failed appear to be built in the early to mid 1990s

What this means is that the buildings are constructed in an era when Sichaun Province was very poor, the local government had very little money, and by necessity, expensive “state of the art” buildings are rare. Pictures of the afflicted areas show many blocks leveled --- so it is not necessarily unique that schools did not survive. It is important to stress that even in the most modern parts of China (say, Hong Kong), there are many legacy buildings that are not necessarily any better built.

2. Schools may be built to a standard design

The Ministry of Education and Construction lays down specifications for buildings, and school buildings of this type were rated “3” on a 4 level scale for earthquake resistance with 1 being highest.

In retrospect, this may have been an unwise decision --- but that is 20/20 hindsight. It remains to be investigated, but there is a possibility that they were all built to the same design, and thus, shared the same design faults and shortcomings.

3. Concrete Columns and hollow floor construction

This method of construction is pretty standard in many parts of China including Hongkong, and also in Singapore, etc. for low to mid-rises. A concrete column frame is poured with steel reinforcing bars inside. The key problem is to have the steel properly tied and braced (inside the columns.). A secondary issue, which may or may not play a role, is that such steel reinforced columns corrode, and in high humidity / corrosion environments, the reinforcing materials lose their strength over a period of decades as steel corrode and literally force the concrete apart. If recycled rebar, rather than new rebar, steel is used, this introduces another issue. Rebar steel is historically the “low of the low” and it is improbable that “substandard” steel was used. Concrete that was substandard (insufficient cement / improper mixing / curing) is possible, and need to be investigated. Floors have to be properly “tied” to the lattice framework, and it is entirely possible that when a portion of the structure failed, the entire structure “pan caked” like the World Trade Center collapses. Again, science need to be done.

If it was shoddy construction or problem with building materials, there would have been a far greater diversity of failure modes --- i.e. some schools heavily damaged, portions of schools built at different times by different contractors (some skimped, some did not) would have had different failure modes.

The NY Times showed engineers and scientists photos of the structural elements of collapsed schools, and some of them concluded that it is the problem. I would stress that without these facts put in context (intensity of earthquake, structural design, etc.) It would be just as easy to conclude that the World Trade Center Towers are poorly constructed because neither survived the attacks.

4. Quake Intensity

This is a moment magnitude 7.9 quake. What most people do not recognize is that it may only be one point above the Kobe Quake, but in fact, this is a logarithmic scale where small changes make a huge difference. Note that this is a different measure than the older Richter scale.

To put this in context, the Kobe quake is 6.9, the California Northridge Quake is 6.7. This is a pretty strong quake in a densely populated area. Period.

While it remains to be seen, it could be that even if the buildings were perfectly built, they could not have survived because it is beyond their design strength. It is interesting to note that at least some of the buildings were in places near hills and boulders rained on top of the school, killing people inside. That is an argument to build further away from hills --- but that is easy to say when land is at a premium.

5. Other buildings nearby that survived

This is perhaps the best evidence that shoddy construction and corruption is not the principal, or major cause. If corruption was involved, it would have afflicted a whole range of buildings built by the same contractors and supervised by the same building inspectors. The taller / bigger government buildings would also have failed catastrophically because of the same problems. The fact that they remained standing is probably because they are a) newer, b) taller so inherently stronger, c) different design.

The fact that so many other types of buildings survived, and many also did not almost immediately cast doubt on corruption and construction faults. It would be clear that such corruption would afflict many other buildings built by the same contractors. Yet, the photos on the news show pretty major devastation where whole blocks are wiped out. Yes, there may be buildings standing, but they are typically taller than the schools, and thus, built to different specs and standards.

All in all, these are preliminary observations. Detailed investigations by engineers, investigation of actual blueprints, facts, eyewitness accounts, fact finding with individual builders and contractors, testing of samples (steel, concrete, soil, etc.), and simulation modeling of the actual failure modes are the kind of things needed to verify and confirm what actually happened.

While it is far too early to conclude anything, I would say that it is possible to make a case that malfeasance is one possible factor out of many, but not necessarily the deciding or the critical factor.

Let us do science and then run some simulations, before we conclude the wrong thing.

BTW, I have yet to hear anyone conclude that the World Trade Center Towers were poorly constructed because they failed so catastrophically.

[jeff]

The local party secretary is on his knees to plead for parents. Although it is very Chinese, it hasn't been seen for long time. Let's be patient and see what will happen.

[Juan Valdez]

I predict Cuban athletes will sweep the medals in this event.

[Tian]

re: 5. Other buildings nearby that survived

A B, another possibly other buildings survived is that those are privately-owned buildings and their owners do more rigorous checks on them. Schools, on the other hand are contracted out by the government and therein lies the possibly of corruption.

In fairness, it all also depend on the when the schools are built. Governmental builings tend to be new because officials lavish moneys on them (while eagerly taking kickbacks), hence their comparative structural resilience.

But I agree all is speculation until the experts evaluates the situation.

[Wilbur Varela]

A B, I've been reading your comments for a while now. You seem to always have all this info, and now your blog resembles some propaganda department manifesto right out of 1973, cultural revolution, the later years. Do they pay you just to write daily on here? wow. great gig.

yo, the fact is the schools collapsed and the party members buildings didn't. We can see the truth with our own eyes, your own news to be precise. Start asking some questions man. When one billion chinese always say the same thing, it makes us nervous. Get 3 mexicans in the room, and you get 3 opinions. How come no one ever says that some corrupt ass clowns are running china?

[A B]

Tian,

I rule nothing out, including monster worms from Mars that ate the steel reinforcing rods until there is nothing left to hold it up except concrete.

My biggest concern is that the natural tendency of Chinese bureaucratic organizations, or should I say ANY bureaucratic organization, is to conceal and cover up problems, tell the higher ups what they want to hear, and then climb the ladder.

The higher up you go the bureaucracy, the less likely you are to be able to get at the truth, and in Chinese bureaucratic tradition, the truth is likely to be buried in 3 characters in a 8,000 word eight legged essay.

Furthermore, my big concern is that the anger and grief could be translated into vengeance for officials and contractors who may or may not have either made mistakes or skimped on construction. By publically threatening officials and contractors with severe punishment, they are going to ensure that everyone, rather than to co-operate to help find the truth, will do the utmost to cover-up all evidence, to the detriment of learning from the mistakes.

My next biggest concern is that the rebuilding effort will be rushed. Right now officials are speaking of a 2 to 3 year time to rebuild, which is lighting fast, leaving virtually zero time to do good fact finding, research, science, investigation, and then to come up with ideas (which need to be itself examined and tested) to improve structures built to handle the "next time". The only way things could be done this fast is for replacement constructions to be done with existing techniques, with perhaps just a slightly higher margin of safety. (e.g. design for a moment magnitude 8.1 quake)

In particular, I am deadly afraid of the iron law of engineering: That whatever you design for (e.g. moment magnitude 8.5, the next quake will be just slightly above the design limits and cause substantial damage).

It is important to stress that design limits, whatever they are, are always a compromise between economy, affordability, practicality, and anticipated likelihood of the perils.

There is no such thing as a perfect design and execution. Witness the New Orleans levees that turned out to be just slightly below what was needed for Katrina (now blamed on faulty design specifications, substandard construction, and incomplete sections!). Or, the seemingly well design and strong buildings in Kobe Japan that toppled over like a stick because the weakest part was the ground floor.

If I were the Ministers responsible, I would call for a six month moratorium on new construction except emergency repairs or "must do" infrastructure rebuilding like roads, bridges, etc. to give scientists and engineers time to study the damaged structures.

Meanwhile, an imperative is to marshall the largest scientific and engineering effort at failure analysis China has ever done to learn as much as possible from this tragedy.

The last thing China need is to rebuild "willy nilly" and to allow local officials to show "progress" by quickly rebuilding structures.

[A B]

Hmmmm... can someone tell me what I am suppose to say tomorrow so I am in line with the instructions from the Propaganda Department?

And oh... while you are at it... I need to know where and when I collect my pay.

I am invoicing for all this!

[Wilbur Varela]

By the way, has anyone noticed no one gives a hoot about the new and wonderful sport of marathon swimming? Senor A B thinks its more important to compare the World trade center with the earthquake, as if somehow we won't notice that the poor schools crumbled, and the communist party buildings didn't. little kids are dead, and the guys in charge aren't. hows that for a preliminary observation?

[Stan]

Tim
The news is at the quake site.
What happened? You're covering Olympic preparations instead. Put your reporters hat back on please.

[A B]

Here is a good look at school collapses in other quakes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/science/27schoo.html?8dpc=&_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

I am still not satisfied with this approach --- which remains one of just strengthening buildings.

Strengthened buildings just fail at a higher threshold.

Why not design them from the ground up with energy absorbing / soft failure modes which is possible in China's relatively low labor cost environment?

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas.....

[nanheyangrouchuan]

"I have yet to hear anyone conclude that the World Trade Center Towers were poorly constructed because they failed so catastrophically."

There is no such technology to allow a skyscraper to survive such an attack, and it was the weight of the collapsing upper structures that slammed down on the lower levels and caused a chain reaction of failure.

Look at many of the buildings that did not completely collapse, their bottom 1-2 floors are crushed. Sometimes the higher levels are standing. Not much flexibility in the lower supports and/or shoddy concrete.

[PaZhuLian]

@nanheyangrouchuan: “…My offspring are all of the people who have got on board with my realist approach towards China…”

By that did you mean the few bitter-twisted China-rejects, disgruntled expat-failures and grumpy sinophobes that have been swapping blog links and comments with you? Ummm, I wander if they would feel fine and dandy being referred to as your “offspring”. But hey who am I to complain?

However, I do detect certain symptoms that could indicate serious genealogical problem. Judging from the rapid depletion of intriguing arguments and refreshing ideas put forth by you and your “extended family” over the years, there seems to be an increasing risk of “genetic deterioration” resulted from years of “pseudo-intellectual inbreeding”. It’s obvious that you too have been painfully aware of this, which helps explain the shameful tactics you’ve used on other people’s blogs hoping to get some “action” for your own –trolling comments, hyperlinked handles and “shock jockey” style blog title to name a few. Unfortunately, these are all tired and old “pick-up lines” which might produce a few funky one-night-stands but never intellectually stimulating enough to expand your “gene pool”. Sooner or later, you are gonna have to ask yourself: is it time to stop trolling and start self-replenishing by reading some serious shit and maybe even working on that PhD I kept talking about?"

Oh BTW, technologies do exist to allow skyscrapers to survive an attack like 9-11. It might not be economically feasible or practical, but technically such fortification can certainly be done.