SF Tower settlement Part III 18

[dik]

thread815-412357
thread815-470048

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Milliontown]

New Article in ENR. After 15 Years, Settlement Arrested at San Francisco's Millennium Tower

It sounds like the EDRT accepts the work and feels the fix is sufficient. An interesting thing I noted is that Ron Hamburger says that the condo homeowners are the ones who asked to scale back the 52 pile fix. Shifting the blame? I don't recall homeowner input in the reduction of piles but it's been a long road so I could have missed that.

"The pile production problems, which were solved, nevertheless “burned a significant amount of schedule and money,” says Hamburger. “The homeowners asked us to scale down the upgrade” to get back on track, he adds."

Looking back, Hamburger says the foundation upgrade team, which included the homeowners’ association, the contractor and the designers, was “always able to work together" to figure out the best path forward. “There was never any talk of lawsuits,” he adds. “It all worked well,” in the end.

 

[Mark R]

Like Millionton, I find it very doubtful that the homeowners would request a number of piles being reduced. Why in the world what they want to reduce them and cause potential problems in the future? Do they even have anybody on their board with the expertise to know what's being done? If they did say that I'd be looking very seriously for some kickbacks someplace.

 

[Milliontown]

I was pursuing the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering and saw a free paper published in March on the Case History of the Millennium Tower. It was first submitted two years ago (July 12 2021) so it doesn't capture the recent developments but does describe the foundation conditions and settlement pre-fix. It appears this data was developed during the litigation.

I have yet to really dig into the paper but the conclusion sums it up pretty well in my opinion:

Engineering analysis of the case history with 1D and 3D methods demonstrates that the observed settlements were predictable in terms of cumulative amounts and their time variations.

I think they avoid pointing a finger at anything in particular, but this all could have been predicted.

Link

 

[Milliontown]

And for the very Nerdy among us, I found a Ph.D. thesis published during earlier parts of the Millennium Tower debacle regarding the engineering properties of the Old Bay Clay.

This link should provide a download, but my work network provides me with a lot of access to journals so I don't know if it is publicly available (it should be). Engineering Properties and Geologic Setting of Old Bay Clay Deposits, Downtown San Francisco, California

 

[Walnuts]

Milliontown, there may be some truth to the suggestion that it was the Homeowners who asked for the cut back to 18 piles. Not the Homeowners as a whole, but the board of the Millennium Tower Association, the HOA, who had signed off on the Fix and were running out of the money that they got out of the settlements of the earlier lawsuits. Like the EDRT and the DBI, all the parties that signed off on the Fix had egg on their faces and have just been clinging to it, in the case of the ERDT to line their pockets, in the case of the Board of the HOA, in the vain hope that it would somehow restore property values. Good luck with that! I have heard a rumor that the board members who have overseen this catastrophe are now all quitting or not standing for re-election.

As for ENR, they have always been sucking up to Hamburger because he is a big wheel on the ASCE and other code writing committees. Perhaps this is more proof that those who can do, and those that can't teach or write codes?

As for whether the tilt has been stopped or reversed - certainly it has been slowed down and in the short term reversed a little, but it is too early to tell what will happen in the long term. But it already seems clear that the short-term reversal has been only a fraction of the additional tilt caused by the Fix! If anyone-else implemented a fix to reverse the tilt of a building and ended up increasing the tilt, they would be sued to high heaven. But in this case the prior settlement agreements basically leave that up to the Board of the HOA, so it will be interesting to see how that all works out.

 

[Phil1934]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVrMiy0yVxw&t=30s

 

[spsalso]

And another video about this interesting example of engineering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwgwTtpPB0o

Let's not forget that Ron Hamburger said: "The required construction is neither complex nor unusual."

And he oughta know!



spsalso

 

[dik]

They need a 'Sarky' font...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Walnuts]

Funny how Hamburger always defended their calculations and said that the Fix was neither complex nor unusual, but is now using complexity as the excuse for being so far off on their rebound calculation! Ha ha ha ha ha! And curious how the DBI and their supposedly expert panel have never admitted that the Fix has made things worse, rather than better!

 

[dik]

A whole lot of information at:

http://www.lbkarp.com/mi.html

If this project turns south... this could be a valuable source of information.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Mark R]

Thanks for posting that information. I wasn't aware of the exposed rebar in the garage area.Thanks for posting that information. I wasn't aware of the exposed rebar in the garage area.

 

[dik]

I wasn't aware of this whistleblower...

[URL unfurl="true"]https://res.cloudinary.com/engineering-com/image/upload/v1704154093/tips/Whistleblower_1-10-20_ppb2wk.pdf[/url]

This might explain some of the anomalities.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

Who used the term "caused construction"? This whistleblower doesn't seem credible at first glance.

 

[dik]

He might not even be an engineer; he doesn't have to be.

The way things are unfolding with that project, it's possible that there could have been a little collusion. There is something really broken here. In the event, and I don't know the likelihood, the tower has to be razed, I suspect the condo owners will be responsible for the costs. The developer gets away Scott free. To reiterate, there is something really broken here.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

Do you think any highrise construction project occurs without collusion? Isn't that the point of such construction is to secure government grants?

I don't understand, though. Collusion in that sense shouldn't impact the quality of the project. Nobody colluded to make the building lean.

 

[dik]

I've been involved with lots of them... (not really high rise but less than about 30 stories) and no collusion. Maybe the threshold is 31?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

No subsidies? No clearing of red tape? No preferred contractors? Nothing? That is good to hear.

 

[dik]

Even where projects are pre-qualified. There is a set criteria established and everyone is compared on that basis with numeric values established. This is provided at tender time. I've never encountered a 'shifty' plan examiner... other than one instance for a project outside Ottawa. The project manager didn't believe I needed rock anchors. He was friends with the building inspector and the building inspector asked for my design notes... The rock anchors stayed. The only change was the the CBO wanted the top of the rock anchors 'sleeved'. They were not pretensioned so it made little/no difference if they were sleeved... I just sleeved them.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[epoxybot]

I wasn't aware of this whistleblower...

The self-described 'whistleblower' is wrong. Yes, plywood cushions were used but the rebar and strands exiting the top of the piles were protected by a 20 foot long follower. I'm sure it was a pain to work with in the muck. Probably why the pile driver went broke.

 

[Cool_Controls]

Would the plywood cushions be on top of the follower?