The constructed facilities of the United States are deteriorating rapidly because of the effect of natural forces on the materials, inadequate design and construction methods, and lack of sufficient data to fully understand the structural behavior of buildings, bridges and other types of structures. Short-term remedies and long-range solutions are required to ameliorate the current situation. This project will review and study the bank of data on file at the Architecture and Engineering Performance Information Center at the University of Maryland, with the specific objective of identifying the predominate, recurring failures and inadequacies of construction methods. The data will be analyzed to determine the research topics which may be necessary to overcome the failure conditions.
