WIN Stadium roof buckles in high winds - shonky steel?

[Kym]

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/n...s/2298049.aspx

The fate of WIN Stadium’s western grandstand hangs in the balance tonight, despite weather experts cancelling a severe weather warning.The new roof buckled under gale-force winds this afternoon, and there were fears it could collapse if a predicted second surge of gales hit this evening.
The Bureau of Meteorology has since advised that winds have eased.
The situation will be monitored and further warnings will be issued if necessary.
Emergency services rushed to the stadium this afternoon after strong winds buffeted the newly completed roof.
Engineers on site deemed the situation a critical incident. Witnesses say a large structural beam appears to have snapped.

But! It appears as if they bought the steel on eBay from China...
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/n...e/2269647.aspx

Chinese steel was used to build WIN Stadium's western grandstand as BlueScope Steel struggled for survival just 2km away in Port Kembla.

Clearly a case of non genuine steel on eBay... Will Paypal refund?

[WhoDo]

Always the cheapest quote! How do those making the purchasing decisions not understand WHY cheap is "cheap"?

[kiwi]

Clearly a case of making 1 + 1 = 3 (no doubt the chinese steel link prompted by a union rep to the paper)

Australia makes billions and is robust economically not because of our competitive manufacturing baseline like Bluescope (NOT) but because we export Iron Ore to China - and guess what they make with it and export back again ?

Id blame a design fault more than a steel fault anyhow

Shame about the stadium though

[Kym]

@Kiwi - this was supposed to be humorous... Maybe I did not use the right smilies?

I agree it is most likely a design/engineering/construction issue.

[WhoDo]

Id blame a design fault more than a steel fault anyhow

Arrr ... two points here, Darren.

1. Just because they buy our iron ore to make their poor quality steel doesn't mean we have some complicity in that. It's like blaming the flour because the cook's cake tastes bad.

2. Steel just doesn't "snap", as opposed to buckle, unless it's poor quality to begin with. This is typical of high sulphur content and points the bone at the low cost, low quality coking coal used in the steel production rather than the iron ore. China produces most of its own coking coal and some of it is of dubious quality and content.

Having said that, I agree that all I have to go on is the news report and that's not nearly enough evidence to draw any sort of reliable conclusions. The bottom line to my comment above was that if you buy cheap you get cheap and shouldn't be surprised with the consequences of that. Aren't you a Nikon user? Surely you can appreciate that sentiment.

[kiwi]

I agree, if you spec and buy poor quality you get what you pay for

Yeah, as nikon owner you do hear about issues with Canon

[WhoDo]

I agree, if you spec and buy poor quality you get what you pay for

Yeah, as nikon owner you do hear about issues with Canon

[Rattus79]

I agree, if you spec and buy poor quality you get what you pay for

Yeah, as nikon owner you do hear about issues with Canon

Yeah, As a PENTAX owner, you hear about both Nikon and Canon Issues!

[kiwi]

As a nikon owner I've never heard of pintacts

[Rattus79]

As a nikon owner I've never heard of pintacts

They're the things you use to put your contacts in.

[Scotty72]

So, what happened to the stadium?

BTW, I have to agree that criticising the builders of the stadium for using cheaper, imported steel is very hypocritical.

Australians are interested in price over safety. A harsh fact that QANTAS is slowly starting to accept. The hhigh standards of safety QANTAS has maintained for decades comes at the cost of more expensive fares. These days, QANTAS has a sharply declining share of the outbound international market.

People prefer the cheaper tickets offered by Emirates, China East and Asiana OVER the relative safety of QANTAS.

So, raging over the use of Chinese steel in an Australian football stadium is just a little precious for the avg Australian.

Scotty