What happens when bad concrete finds its way into a high-rise building?
Check p. 14 of ENR, November 10, 1997, for one answer. Last summer, 7 truckloads of concrete were poured on the fifth floor of a Manhattan building more than 2 ° hours after initial mixing, which is an hour longer than good practice allows. Inspectors on the site took samples for testing, but while the testing was going on, the frame rose another 14 floors on the contractor’s assertion that the questionable concrete would come up to strength. The samples eventually revealed concrete that in many cases was less than half as strong as had been specified. The structural engineer stopped work, the offending floor was shored, and the defective concrete was cut out and replaced, all at the expense of the contractor. The operation added about six weeks to the construction schedule. I Fondamenti del Costruire That’s the title of the brand-new, Italian edition of Fundamentals of Building Construction. The prodigious work of translation was carried out by Cinzia Talamo and Giancarlo Paganin of M
