San Francisco high-rise sinking, tilting

The curtain wall is apparently peeling away, creating a fire hazard.

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/12/20/s...er-fire-risk-san-francisco-handel-architects/

Its unclear. to me anyway, why Millennium is now suing its construction consultant on the curtainwall

"Dezeen contacted Millennium Partners for comment but is yet to receive a response. But the company has recently taken up the issue of wall problems with Texas-based cladding consultant behind the building Curtainwall Design Consulting – it filed a lawsuit against the firm last month."
 
stellarfun said:
The curtain wall is apparently peeling away, creating a fire hazard.

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/12/20/s...er-fire-risk-san-francisco-handel-architects/

Its unclear. to me anyway, why Millennium is now suing its construction consultant on the curtainwall

"Dezeen contacted Millennium Partners for comment but is yet to receive a response. But the company has recently taken up the issue of wall problems with Texas-based cladding consultant behind the building Curtainwall Design Consulting – it filed a lawsuit against the firm last month."
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There suing to pretend they are not at fault and trying to create that there are more groups at fault besides the developer. But seriously in the end Millennium Partners is responsible for building this Piece of SHIT.
Maybe San Fran taxpaying citizens can pony up 200Million to fix the building.
 
stellarfun said:
One proposal is to micropile to bedrock support for the half that's sinking the most, then wait and let the remaining half sink to that level.
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Has this process ever been attempted before? Pre-existing building to micropile to the bedrock?
 
TheRifleman said:
Has this process ever been attempted before? Pre-existing building to micropile to the bedrock?
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I have seen them micro-pile existing bridge abutments to bedrock, when re-building the bridge as a proverbial brick outhouse. But they were working with a flat horizontal plane, not one that is sinking and tilting. If one micropiles the 10 percent of the foundation where it has sunk the most, does one wait years before the remaining 90 percent sinks to the level of the 10 percent that was micro-piled first?
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbDtn6DAfa4

Mexico City: newly opened Artz Pedregal shopping mall collapses
A newly opened shopping mall in Mexico City has partly collapsed after structural problems apparently led the mall’s operators to evacuate the area. No casualties were reported.

Built on the edge of the city’s main expressway, the mall had suffered previous subsoil slides.
Mexico City mayor José Ramón Amieva said the collapse occurred in an area of offices, and experts were investigating whether the collapse of the cantilevered area was due to structural defects or soil settling.
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The Guardian
 
I wonder how often collapses like this happen in Mexico City, given its rather precarious location in an old lakebed. The whole municipality is rife with subsidence.

Perhaps this is just getting more attention because it's a newer structure?
 
Last night’s “60 Minutes” program -
“Since our story first aired last fall, engineers have begun drilling beneath the Millennium Tower. They're testing a proposed fix for the tilting building, one that would extend the existing foundation all the way to, you guessed it, bedrock. There is still no agreement on who will pay for the fix.”
 
EdMc said:
Last night’s “60 Minutes” program -
“Since our story first aired last fall, engineers have begun drilling beneath the Millennium Tower. They're testing a proposed fix for the tilting building, one that would extend the existing foundation all the way to, you guessed it, bedrock. There is still no agreement on who will pay for the fix.”
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When it comes to quality design/engineering, yet another case of: pay up now, or pay much, much more later.
 
This one just continues to unfold...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Inspectors have issued a violation to management of a sinking condominium building after a large crack formed in a 36th-floor window of the building that has been dubbed the Leaning Tower of San Francisco.

On Tuesday it was reported that Millennium Tower residents heard creaking sounds, then a popping noise around 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

A homeowner found the crack in a window of his unit at the corner of the 58-story high-rise.
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https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area...ancisco-s-sinking-millennium-tower/1420838363
 
They can do seismic modeling on that building in its current condition and figure how it would react to an earthquake, right?
 
statler said:
They can do seismic modeling on that building in its current condition and figure how it would react to an earthquake, right?
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I wouldn’t trust anybody scientific data or certified inspection sticker.

This building is a lemon—get out now-
This is common sense
 
statler said:
They can do seismic modeling on that building in its current condition and figure how it would react to an earthquake, right?
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I believe they have, and have concluded that the present lean does not pose a risk of catastrophic failure.

The window that failed is on the NW side, the side where the lean is occurring; i.e., the building is tipping toward the NW at the same time that entire building is sinking.

The Fire Department was concerned several years ago that in an earthquake, the elevators might become so out of plumb that they would be inoperable. I don't recall reading at what point the tilt would be such that elevators would jam. If it reached that point of course, the certificate of occupancy would be pulled.
 
The current seismic standard in SF says something like buildings must have a 90% probability of retaining structural integrity in a very large earthquake.

i.e. 10% of the buildings fall down. Reasonable to expect that this will be one of them.
 
I guess my question was, does the technology exist to render the building in CAD in it's current state and subject that CAD model to a 'virtual' earthquakes and see how it fares?

If possible, that seems like a fairly prudent way of determine if the building should be deemed uninhabitable.
 
Understood.

I don' have specific professional insight, but: My guess is that the answer is probably "yes, it can be modeled pretty easily, but the problem is that there are so many complex uncertainties that the range of outcomes would be un-usefully large. Especially if the intent would be to use the output in the inevitable litigation that would have to take place in order to kick people out of the building.

Sort of like modeling a hurricane 10 days out. It can be done, but its so sensitive to the micro-specifics of initial conditions that it can only give you a directional / probabilistic insight.
 
statler said:
I guess my question was, does the technology exist to render the building in CAD in it's current state and subject that CAD model to a 'virtual' earthquakes and see how it fares?

If possible, that seems like a fairly prudent way of determine if the building should be deemed uninhabitable.
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Structural & seismic modeling concerns the actual loads on the members, rather than the condition of the members themselves, so they'd have to calculate how much the members have been weakened and if the strength weakening is lateral or axial. Earthquakes are a lateral force. They should have the original models from the design phase and then be able to tweak the numbers based on the weakened members, though it will be difficult to assess just how weakened they are.
 
I'm thinking Logically that any building that does not have a proper foundation is most likely at risk during a major earthquake never mind buildings that actually have solid foundations.

The Building is a death trap for the tenants living there if a catastrophic event hit.. (Good Luck)

At this point the developer of the building is responsible for this.
 
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