TY - JOUR A1 - Helmerich, Rosemarie A1 - Zunkel, Astrid T1 - Partial collapse of the Berlin Congress Hall on May 21st, 1980 T2 - Engineering failure analysis N2 - The Berlin Congress Hall was a gift of the United States of America to Germany for the Berlin World Exhibition in 1957. The elegantly double-curved roof was made from an advanced prestressed concrete construction. The construction followed the design by the American architect Hugh Stubbins with special structural modifications to comply with German construction rules. No early indications for failure initiation were detected before a sudden partial collapse. On May 21st, 1980, the Southern external roof overhang collapsed. In December 1980, Jörg Schlaich and his co-authors published a summarizing expert opinion about structural causes of failure. The present paper mainly introduces results of cause analysis made at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), mandated by the Public Prosecutor at the Berlin District Court to specify the causes of the sudden failure. This paper refers to BAM-publications about analyses that were performed under this mandate and published – most of them in German language – within the first years after failure. The expert's opinions comprise structural considerations materials investigations, metallographic analyses and corrosion. Nowadays experts have learnt from the failure and built a slightly modified roof in the original shape at the 750th birthday of the city of Berlin and re-opened the former Berlin Congress Hall to the public on May 9th, 1987. The Hall is now serving as the House of the Cultures of the World, following the initial intention of the hall. PB - Elsevier Science Publ. CY - Oxford KW - Partial collapse KW - Berlin Congress Hall KW - Analysis KW - Stress corrosion cracking KW - Reconstruction PY - 2014 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/30863 AN - OPUS4-30863 SN - 1350-6307 SN - 1873-1961 VL - 43 IS - Special Issue 'A Tribute to Prof. A. Martens' SP - 107 EP - 119 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany