The Bad Reichenhall ice-arena collapse and the necessary consequences for wide span timber structures

At the beginning of the year 2006, on the 2 ^nd of January, the ice-arena roof in Bad Reichenhall collapsed under the actual snow load. 15 people died, 30 were partly heavily injured. It was one of the biggest building collapses in the history of Germany after the last World War. Two main expertises were ordered by the public prosecutor, one of it was prepared by the authors. The paper presents the main reasons for the collapse: - Use of urea-formaldehyde glue under moist conditions - Mistakes in the structure calculation - and no (required) evaluation of the calculations by a check engineer - Divergence from the technical approval for this type of construction - High snow load - but not exceeding the calculated snow load - Non robust construction - Lack of maintenance In addition the collapse caused an intensive inspection of hundreds of existing wide span timber structures. The result shows an astonishing number of defects. Taking into account the statistical analysis of these inspections the paper ends with recommendations for further regular inspections and quality control of this type of structures. More information about the main detected defects and possibilities to avoid them are given in the additional paper of Phillip Dietsch, Arthur Wolfrum and Stefan Winter [3].