2018 River City Branch Library in downtown Baton Rouge -- Overhang Beam Failure 1

[NOLAscience]

Have any of you learned any more about the failure at the East Baton Rouge Parish library branch? It was briefly discussed in an earlier (closed) thread at:

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=438030

The engineers put hydraulic jacks under the overhang for a year. They were removed in May 2019.
"The cost for completing the library is expected to be more than $2.7 million" and an "impending legal battle" has started, of course.

https://www.wbrz.com/news/baton-rouge-s-downtown-library-hosts-soft-opening-friday-morning/

This has a nice photo, from Jan 2020:

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_r...cle_973ad574-7b40-11ea-88fe-83b0c83223d1.html

"That flaw caused support beams on the building's cantilever, a building feature that hangs over the sidewalk on the north side of the building, to fail in April 2018. Construction resumed in May 2019 when the city-parish's Library Board of Control allocated an additional $2.7 million to complete the project."

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_00f71f92-b596-11ea-b124-cf49a15e28ee.html

 

[Cool_Controls]

Link

 

[NOLAscience]

Cool_Controls, that article is from 2018. I was wondering what has been learned in the past year or so.

 

[ldeem]

One of the articles in the Advocate showed a red line for inspection, it looked like it was a mark up from the structural drawings. Another article listed a beam to column welded clip angle that failed. So putting two and two together it sounds like the top chord was anchored or spliced with welded clip angles. Given the size of the truss that seems an unusual choice of connection. I am going to GUESS this was a case of poor shop drawing review or deviation from approved shop drawing by fabricator.