Parking Garage Wall Failure
Parking Garage Wall Failure
(OP)
This was a potentially very dangerous incident. Fortunately no one was hurt.
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What is the design load for walls like this. Was corrosion was the cause?
Link
What is the design load for walls like this. Was corrosion was the cause?






RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Hard to tell for sure without a closer look... Am I crazy or does it actually look like the steel plates were spot epoxied on? Weird pretty normal for the decorative panels, but can't be for the concrete panel!
I'd love to see the drawings, and the as builts if anything of the sort exists.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Pre-casters provide such narrow panels (4-6") that they can't have much shear resistance (one-way). Nor room for anchor embedment. If the panel holds in one way shear then the anchorage will fail, if it fails in shear then you generally have the wire mesh to keep it from falling down (it acts like a net as well elongating the time to bring the car to a stop lowering the overall force applied).
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
X3 for the insufficient anchorage diagnosis. There appears to be concrete remaining on the interior side of the anchor plates suggesting that they were cast within the spandrel thickness. That would make your breakout frustum even worse than usual.
I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Sure it did. ;)
Having looked at a number of gross concrete overloads to failure I wonder if some continuous steel reinforcement (likely requiring cast-in-place) would have been better as it could act as a "net" to hold the car and largest pieces from falling even after everything was fractured.
Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.
(Just passed the 16-hour SE exam, woohoo!)
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
If you can find it (small company, not a lot of marketing dollars) check out the M16SSS (Metric 16mm Seismic Safety Strap). It is small, inexpensive, and would have prevented this from occurring after the initia break.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
I attended a seminar session by AISC about 35 years ago addressing cladding connections to buildings. In addition to the crappy connections themselves, they're often treated as orphans by the building trades. They're not steel, so steelworkers don't do them. So they're sometimes welded by stonemasons since it's kind of a masonry piece. And they're not the best welders.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Parking garage design makes me cringe. There are so many things that can go wrong, and the industry has some grey areas. Thin skins, brittle connections and little redundancy. Oh, lest not forget the developers fighting to save every penny.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
As to the orbiplate, that isn't new at all. I was specifying it in NZ nearly ten years ago... But it is a fantastic product. Just be careful if you ever try to bring some in: The NZ and AUS versions are quite different, with the AUS version cheaper and of some sort of semi-brittle cast material similar to Zamac. Aussie doesn't have the seismic issues of NZ or many areas of North America.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Have you seen any good links for multi-wythe precast composite panels constructed using carbon fiber connectors? Carbon Cast and Aslan has done a lot of research, but I am interested to find more.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
Sadly I can't get anything similar to an elephant foot ferrule in Canada. Pathetic industry in NA for innovation.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
http://imgick.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/widt...
It's interesting that these barriers are rated in resistance to force, not energy absorption, as they are not load bearing, but energy absorbing. If my math is right, this car might have had 2000ft-lbf at impact. If it could take 10,000 lbf, then that's .2 foot (~2.5 inches) of required displacement for fully plastic behavior.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
I think the safer method would be steel straps from the top of the retaining walls to the floor above, allowing a large amount of displacement if the angles fail with less risk of dropping the panel and potentially crushing people or vehicles below. Plus, as the panel swings, it swings upward, increasing the energy stored, beyond the amount absorbed by the fracturing of the angles.
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: Parking Garage Wall Failure