Learning from failures at the interface

Civil engineers continually interact with other engineering disciplines. There are also many internal interfaces, for example between design and construction and between analysis and practice. Clearly, opportunities for misunderstandings abound whenever there is an interface between specialist skills, and—left undiscovered—can result in failure. It is vital to learn from all failures, and grouping them under interfaces offers a convenient categorisation. Those discussed in this paper include building interfaces, technology frontiers, structures supporting moving loads, bearings, systems' behaviour and control systems.