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Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls
3

Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
Hello,
I was asked to inspect and provide opinion on the cause of cracks developed in load bearing end walls of a building. Please see attached. The building superstructure is precast concrete, 23 storey high and rectangular in footprint. These cracks, as seen, start from the wall vents located near the ends of wall panels and propagate diagonally away from the support. The cracks extend through the wall. To me, they appear to be shear cracks caused by the reduced section of the beam part of the wall/frame, but can't confirm if the reduced section is adequate or not given that no design drawings of the individual wall panels are available for review. What do you think, and what would be the action plan to provide an opinion on the cause?

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Possibly settlement of the supports at or just beyond the left side of the photos.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
Thank oldestguy, These cracks are on the two sides of the centre of the wall as seen in the third photo I attached for the wall elevation.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Even though they are bearing walls, they may be acting as shear walls if they are stiffer than the lateral force resisting system of the building. If that's the case, they are probably diagonal shear cracks which manifest themselves at the weakest point....openings. Since this is a rather tall structure, the walls may be preventing the building from racking, where the forces would be very high in the lower stories. Do these cracks occur at primarily the lower stories or do they also occur at the upper stories? I am envisioning a sort of coupling beam action with large vertical coupling shear forces where the cracks occur.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

In what way are the panels load bearing? There appears to be daylight under the panels, so looks like they are facade, not structure. A section through this would be helpful in understanding.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
MotorCity,
These are bearing walls and also shear walls. They are called on the drawings "walls". Actually they are frames. I agree with your thinking, but what puzzled me is the fact that these cracks started from level 3 and up. No cracks on the lower two floors, which contradicts the expected cracks developing in the lower, worst location due to lateral loads.
hokie66,
The floor precast panels bear on these walls. This is confirmed on the the erection and structural drawings.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

It's just that your photo and the elevation are different. I can accept the elevation as representing loadbearing precast, but the photo looks like the panels are supported on the slab. Which way do the floors span relative to the cracked panels?

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
hokie66,
The floor panels are perpendicular to these walls. Yes, the floor panels sit on the wall below and the wall above sits on the floor panel as seen on the elevation.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

The cracks appear to have been sealed and painted. How old are they?

Have you checked the structure for drift? That could explain the cracks starting at the 3rd level.

Agree with MotorCity...they have the appearance of diagonal shear cracks; however, you obviously need to find the driver behind that.

Is there any chance that these occurred as a result of erection of the precast panels? Perhaps they were not designed for the construction loads.

You have a significant section reduction at the openings. Any chance that post-construction shrinkage created these? Check the crack widths at bottom,center and top. If the same, likely uniform shrinkage. If wider at bottom, then some bending is occurring.

Good luck! These are often head scratchers!

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
Thanks Ron, The building is fairly new, less than 10 years old. They are not sure when the cracks showed up. We are not the designers. We are only involved in checking these cracks and the reason behind them, and if there is any structural significance to them. Why the designer engineer is not involved? Don't know.
We haven't done anything except for a visual inspection and review of the available drawings. No analysis and no checking of the design. Currently, need to say what possible reasons for the cracks are and what needs be done next.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Ron might be onto something about the erection cracking; stresses around rectangular openings for heavy panels can get pretty extreme. I've run a few FEA analysis of various precast items and it's not hard to get the tensile stress above 7.5f'c0.5. Once one of these cracks opens up, if there's insufficient reinforcement to restrain it, the normal lateral and vertical drift of the structure could open it up further.

I'd say if all your structural analysis check out (both vertical and lateral related) then take a look at the handling stresses. Keep in mind that a big panel like that may be handled at a lower f'c than the final design strength.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

In the case of differential settlement between the interior wall and the remaining part of the building, a precise elevation check will answer this one way or the other.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Are the openings reinforced? ie, a acouple of 10M or 15M bars all around?

Dik

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Quote (robbie)

I agree with your thinking, but what puzzled me is the fact that these cracks started from level 3 and up. No cracks on the lower two floors, which contradicts the expected cracks developing in the lower, worst location due to lateral loads.

Not necessarily so. In a coupled shear wall system, the peak demand in the coupling beams is at the top rather than the bottom. This lends credence to motorcity's hypothesis (nice). And yours as I do in fact believe these to be permutations of flexural shear cracks.

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: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Robbiee:
Are these precast panels actually “L” shaped beams with the lower leg pointing inward, to pick up the slab loads? Then you have bending, beam shear and torsion all acting at the corners of those vent openings. Likely some pretty high localized stresses in the conc. Why is the one vent in photo #2 different than the vents in photo #1, and what are the vents really for? How are these vent openings shaped through the beam/panel thickness? Do these cracks only happen in the one vert. portion of the bldg. wall, or do they happen at all of the vents shown in the elev? What other lateral load resisting features/system exists in the plane of that exterior wall, other than these precast panels?

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Check the painting history of the building. You can also take a small core through the crack surface to determine if more than one coating has been placed since the original. I use a 2" diameter diamond coring bit for such. It will not cause a structural issue to core the surface and penetrate 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch. This might give an indication of the crack age. This might be an important key to finding the source of the cracks.

I do not believe it is settlement since the manifestation does not appear below the 3rd floor. While the framing system might vary in the first 3 floors, if settlement were the impetus for the cracking, there would likely be some manifestation of distress at or near the base of the building.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Ron: Do we know how well the precast panels fit in their positions. Could it be that later (than at job start) the forms were enlarged some for upper panels because the plenty of slop had to be reduced or more rigid joint filler became used.
And after The mighty engineer (below) maybe a change in bar locations at the opening for the higher floors.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

It would be interesting to find out if the blockouts were field cut or blocked out in the plant. Getting correct mechanical information tends to be the final thing one gets in precast production and a field cut hole is unlikely to have any extra rebar.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

I can all but guarantee that those were blocked out in the plant.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

@TME: question for you as this has me curious now. We don't know that this is a lateral/strength thing yet but, for now, let's assume that it is. I imagine the process unfolding something like this:

1) Panel designer spots holes and reinforces panels accordingly. Maybe even some sexy strut and tie. Go engineering!

2) Cracks form and owner wants to know if everyone will die.

3) Engineer looks at it and says that everything is fine. That fancy STM reinforcing wouldn't even work until post cracking anyhow, right?

4) Owner wants to know why design team thinks that it's okay for the skin of his zillion dollar building to be all cracked to heck.

So my question is this: when one designs and or supplies something like this, do you design it not to crack under service lateral loads so as to prevent aesthetic problems? I'm guessing not but then there's the potential to end up where we may find ourselves here. And, hopes and wishes aside, it's hard to imagine that a stress concentration like these block outs could be dealt with in a serious, load carrying member without initiating cracking.

Please advise...

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: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Quote (KootK)

So my question is this: when one designs and or supplies something like this, do you design it not to crack under service lateral loads so as to prevent aesthetic problems? I'm guessing not but then there's the potential to end up where we may find ourselves here. And, hopes and wishes aside, it's hard to imagine that a stress concentration like these block outs could be dealt with in a serious, load carrying member without initiating cracking.

@KootK: I am assuming most precasters will be similar to our plants in this reply. From what I've seen this is fairly reasonable to assume.

It depends on the specification and project requirements how much I typically dig into a design to avoid cracking (engineering judgement, strut-and-tie, FEA, etc.). At a minimum extra reinforcement would typically be provided around openings, either through analysis or rule-of-thumb. I imagine this is similar to what most precasters would do, unless the EOR designed the panels and already called out the rebar layout. Many times I will actually defer to the guys in the shop regarding more typical pieces; they'll typically have just as good of a feel as I (if not better) for what is at risk for cracking during casting and handling.

Almost always any cracking during casting, erection, or construction is an issue (for pretty much exactly the reason you stated). Typically precast components are required to be uncracked up to construction being completed. To accomplish this I often have to consider just the plain concrete strength and even that may be at a slightly reduced compressive and tensile strength during the early life of the piece. Thus, you're correct that much of the added reinforcement likely isn't doing much other than restraining any cracking after it might occur.

After construction, I've very rarely been required to have uncracked pieces for service level loads. Of course, prestressed members often are uncracked anyway and a lot of what I design (columns, buried structures, etc) is under high compression loads which help keep cracks closed. On my own designs I've often designed for no service level cracking when it was inexpensive to do so and provided significant benefit to the owner (for me this is typically precast stairs, precast buildings/facades, and similar).

Often it's not hard to work around blocked out areas or other stress risers. Typically we adjust our lifting points to keep those areas in compression or low tension. Other things might be done as well; bolting steel reinforcements to the exterior, pretension to provide a compressive force, cast with non-metallic fibers in the mix, or even just try and cast a trial piece and see if it cracks.

Very rarely does the project actually require anything beyond just "no cracks please". Recently had a DOT project for bridge deck panels with a ton of blocked out areas for the girder shear studs. Lots of weird panel shapes and block outs within a few inches of the panel edge. Project required all handling tensile stresses be less than 5*SQRT(f'c_release). Ended up having to do a full 3D FEA of each panel to identify the stresses at the bond outs. The shop guys and contractor probably hated me as I had some panels with extra lifting points to be held up with straps and come-alongs to keep the tensile stresses low.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
Thanks everyone for very valuable opinions. I got today the individual wall panels drawings. Please see attached.
KootK,
I agree with you regarding the coupled shear walls you noted above, but do you see these panels put together acting as coupled shear walls? I see more of a frame behavior.
dhenger,
No, the walls don't have a ledge to support the floor. The floor sits on the wall.
Oldestguy,
I agree that differential settlement would cause this type of cracks, but why not in the lower levels like Ron noted?
Brad805,
The holes were blocked out in the plant.
My opinion:
The reduced section is half of the "beam" section and located near the support. Under gravity loads, the beam on the sides of the opening can act as cantilevers given that top rebars are present and anchored into the columns. Under lateral loads, the reduced section is only two 4"deep x 8" wide pieces with no shear reinforcing. This section is subjected to the max. shear in the panel. The reduced section could have cracked because its shear resistance is less than than the required shear. ( we would need to analyze the building to get the shear stress in these panels and check if the above is correct). No analysis has been done by us.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Quote (Robbiee)

I agree with you regarding the coupled shear walls you noted above, but do you see these panels put together acting as coupled shear walls? I see more of a frame behavior.

Yeah, I do. I puzzled over it a while myself though. Here's what I came to:

1) I expect you'll have the superposition of two types of behavior: cantilevered wall/frame for which coupling demand would be a maximum up high, and shear mode building sway (moment frame) for which coupling demand would be a maximum down low. I have trouble wrapping my head around the full complexity of it but this is why my gut tells me that max demand may well be in the middle, where you've got some of both going on. Were I in your shoes, I might try to quickly model something of similar proportions just to see what kind of behavior really does shake out in this regard. That could probably be just an afternoon's fun so long as you're not getting to hung up on trying to model the real thing accurately.

2) Without doubt, each bay of stacked panels will exhibit some coupled shear wall behavior. In my mind, the real question is whether or not the whole wall will act as one frame or the individual bays will act like several, separate shear wall systems. To explain where you do and don't see cracking horizontally, the entire wall would need to be acting as one. That makes the middle the location of peak vertical shear. I'm guessing that the connections are such that the entire wall would act as a single system but I'd need a look at the connections to be sure-ish.

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: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

I think kootk is on the money with his diagram screenshot he posted. this is why there is no cracking on the bottom levels. this is a coupled wall situation

whether or not its a safety issue at this point is not our judgement call to make, but as an armchair engineer back home with no skin in the game, I would say its not a big concern. I might request a concrete scanner to swing by for $500 just to make sure there is a bit of steel around that opening.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
NorthCvil,
Thanks. The shop drawings of the wall show there are steel around the openings as per the attachment I posted previously. But, Don't you think there might be a design deficiency for lateral loads should analysis show the shear force at the location of the opening can't be resisted by the reduced section-between the two ties?

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Robbiee... what are the bar sizes? #3, #4, #5, 10M, 15M? There does not appear to be a lot of reinforcing across the headers. Why the hooks on the vertical bars and not the horiz ones? They both have less than 16" for development.

Dik

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
Dik,
The drawings show 4-15M bars top and same bottom in the top beam. There is one closed tie of 10M at each side of the opening. No other ties in the beams.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Quote (Robbiee)

There is one closed tie of 10M at each side of the opening. No other ties in the beams.

Really? If you're right about that, it may indeed be a problem. I'd assumed that there were regularly spaced stirrups that you hadn't bothered to show. Strange choice for a major load bearing beam element in my opinion.

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: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Robbie,

Are these panels the main intended lateral force resisting system for the building?

if so - then yes, we do have a major problem here. I was under the impression these are cladding elements that have been taking some lateral because they are stiffer than the main LFRS.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

(OP)
NorthCivil,
These walls are called shear walls on the drawings.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Robbiee,

It looks like the designer of the steel layout within these walls didn't consider coupling wall behavior. that's why there are so many verticals, but few horizontals.

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

2
they looked at it like this.



Or they looked at the behavior as identified as "horizontal shear failure" within this image below. they didn't consider vertical shear failure.

[http://theconstructor.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/...]

RE: Help identifying this crack pattern in concrete walls

Quote (Robbiee)

Under gravity loads, the beam on the sides of the opening can act as cantilevers given that top rebars are present and anchored into the columns.

Could it be gravity deflection of the long cantilever under the weight of the floor planks?

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