Major flaws in concrete in Silver Spring transportation project

WTOP ^ | January 30, 2012 | Adam Tuss

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

ROCKVILLE, Md. - There are major flaws with the way the concrete was poured in the $101 million Transit Center in the heart of downtown Silver Spring.

During a news conference Monday, Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner outlined the issues, calling the situation a "serious problem." He also hinted at the possibility of legal action against the contractor.

"Specifications for the project called for there to be 10 inches of concrete. The analysis that has been done has shown that for significant portions of the second floor and the third floor, there's only eight and a half inches," Berliner said.

The three-story transit center is supposed to support Metro and MARC trains, Metro and Ride-On buses, as well as other transportation modes. Construction on the project started in 2008.

Although Montgomery County leaders aren't saying it directly, the belief is that legal action could be coming against the contractor for the project, Foulger-Pratt.

"I am a lawyer and I would say to you where there is a mistake, and a lot of money involved, that increases the chances of litigation exponentially," Berliner said.

Foulger-Pratt used a sub-contractor to pour the concrete -- La Plata based Facchina Construction.

The Silver Spring Transit Center has run into a number of delays since construction began. The transit hub is supposed to be an anchor for a mixed-use development including apartments, condominiums and a hotel.

"We are awaiting a proposal from the contractor with respect to remediation. Under the terms of the arrangement, the contractor has the right and the obligation to come forth with a remediation plan," Berliner said.

He said the county will not be on the hook for the mistake, and that the contractor will have to make up the difference.

The expected completion date had been set for early summer. A completion date is now in doubt.

[philman_36]

This is the end result of bad inspectors...period!
Auditors find rampant problems in highway construction inspections
Construction inspection services contracts were often missing several critical pieces of information that could be used to ensure the state was getting its money’s worth. Auditors found that contracts had no scopes of work – detailed lists of tasks that must be done under the contract.

Depth, width, length...that's it! Inspectors do the paper work and the company gets paid.
And we're not even considering that forms come in set heights!

So if it wasn't the right form height then the wrong forms were deliberately used to make the contractor more money.
And if they used a slipform paver then they had to know the specific depth to even set the machine up to lay the road!

Corruption, collusion and fraud, all the way, IMO.

[philman_36]

Corruption, collusion and fraud, all the way, IMO.

Damn, sounds just like D.C.!

[philman_36]

Add two inches of asphalt.

[JewishRighter]

I had a construction lawsuit where the contractor was a design-build guy, which meant that they did both. Well, they subcontracted the structural steel design out to a guy who used a very green kid and didn’t check his work. Bottom line: after the concrete was poured, the floor had a belly in the middle (you could see that it was concave) and, if you looked at steel corrugate decking from below, you could see it buckled in a lot of places. Problem: inadequate sizing of I-beams for joists. Solution: We hired a structural steel expert who designed a system of welding plates to reinforce the joists at the critical load points. Once that was done, they poured a special floor leveling compound, to get the floors flat. Whatta mess.

[JewishRighter]

I had a construction lawsuit where the contractor was a design-build guy, which meant that they did both. Well, they subcontracted the structural steel design out to a guy who used a very green kid and didn’t check his work. Bottom line: after the concrete was poured, the floor had a belly in the middle (you could see that it was concave) and, if you looked at steel corrugate decking from below, you could see it buckled in a lot of places. Problem: inadequate sizing of I-beams for joists. Solution: We hired a structural steel expert who designed a system of welding plates to reinforce the joists at the critical load points. Once that was done, they poured a special floor leveling compound, to get the floors flat. Whatta mess.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“Add two inches of asphalt.”

Wait, wet newspaper is so much cheaper!

[philman_36]

...wet newspaper...

You beast! Think of all the trees you would have to kill to do that!
/environmentalist impression

[MileHi]

That is how you pad the bottom line. Who is going to notice....?

[ncfool]

GREAT UNION CONTRACTOR.

[driftdiver]

I’ve spoken with numerous large govt contractors that bid on contracts assuming they’ll only deliver 80% of the RFP. Its the only way to be competitive on price.

So they got 8 1/2 inches of concrete where the spcs say 10, which is 85%. Seems they got an extra 5%.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I was freepmailed on my joke about the subcontractor. Apparently, the Facchina company is a conservative donor that does good work, and Folgier-Pratt goofed in this case, which actually makes it scarier, since I work in a Folgier-Pratt building that had to have some of its floors reinforced shortly after it opened for business.

My apologies for implying mob ties.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

[Razzz42]

“...Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bechtel expanded its energy engineering activities. In 1963, Bechtel began construction of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California. However the company was embarrassed in 1977 when it installed a 420-ton nuclear-reactor vessel backwards at the power plant in San Onofre.[4]...”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel

[Razzz42]

Maryland Community News Online ......... washingtonpost.com

[Razzz42]

In this link the article has a few further tidbits and a link to videos of the construction project.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

I’d like an explanation of how one can increase the thickness (not just the thickness, but the structural strength implied by the thickness) of poured concrete roadway/trafficway without tearing the whole freaking thing out and rebuilding it.

More concrete on top alone will increase the slab strength if the bottom steel is in tension. If the top steel is in tension, they will need to add a layer of top steel in the topping. They can make the correction by scarifying the top surface. Add a bonding agent. Add a layer of top steel where needed. Place a topping concrete overlay.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“It may”. (increase strength)

You sound like you know more about the specifics than I do, me being only casually acquainted with a modest number of foundation pours, walkways, strictly residential stuff....although mostly in CA and EQ standards have REALLY cranked the req’ments in recent years. My brother just built an addition onto his house, single story but rather on a hill, with slidy clay soil, to boot. 600 sq foot addition, I think there were 16 qty 24” diam piers drilled 18’ below grade. There was a hell of a lot more 1” rebar (in quads) than I ever thought I would see in a residential build.

Personally, I belong to the school that says steel is very cheap and it is foolish to even come close to scrimping on it.

Nevertheless...I still say it would not be easy to add a 2.5” think “frosting” layer to an existing pour and have embedded steel well centered in the pour such that much add’l strength would develop. I think such a pour would have to be managed with a hell of a lot more skill than the current contractor exercised. And be subject to bad cracking over voids. I don’t know if it snows in MD thus implying freeze-thaw and salt but that is bad stuff when it comes to concrete and maybe that’s why the super fat slab was spec’ed in the first place. I agree that amazing things can be done with adhesives, but color me skeptical that the original as-spec’ed strength could be achieved with a frosting layer.

The issue with busways is that if cracks develop, you end up with heavy buses pounding and pounding on the divots in the surface.

[Razzz42]

Mentioning San Onofre nuke construction, back in my concrete (minor structures) construction days, reminds me of the time I was talking to a labor that worked on that project.

Seems when pouring one of the domes, after every section poured, it was x-rayed. Small bubbles were appearing, enough to at first recommend more extensive concrete vibration. Further pours and x-rays showed the same bubbles, enough to change the mix design besides the extensive concrete vibration. Further pours and more x-rays, bubbles still constantly appearing throughout the pours.

Finally due to stringent quality control for nuclear plant construction a section of a newly poured concrete showing these bubbles in x-rays was remove and sent to a lab for analysis. Result and recommendation that came back was to prevent concrete labors from spitting shells from sunflower seeds during the pours.

[sauropod]

Ultra-high performance concrete.