The Butterfly Garden, a space that combined nature and lightweight architecture, suffered the collapse of its glass dome during a hailstorm. The design, intended to withstand uniform loads, could not endure the asymmetric impact of the ice. The fracture of the stainless steel tubes due to flexural-torsional failure revealed a weak point in the structure, now being analyzed with advanced digital tools.
Digital pipeline: from point cloud to structural analysis 🛠️
The structural forensics team used RealityCapture to generate a precise point cloud of the incident from photographs and drone flights. With that 3D model, the deformed geometry was exported to Ansys to simulate the event. The finite element analysis confirmed that the flexural-torsional failure in the tubes originated at the anchor points, where hail generated an unforeseen torsion that exceeded the steel's yield limit.
The hail that didn't read the load plans 🌩️
It seems the hailstones didn't attend the structural calculation class. They fell right where the dome expected snow, not asymmetric impacts. Now engineers wonder if the next design will include a giant umbrella or an anti-hail shield. Meanwhile, the butterflies have lost their greenhouse and are looking for a rental in another neighborhood.