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Texas Tower: 47-Story Office Tower At 845 Texas Ave.


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41 minutes ago, keaton said:

With apologies to the group for lurking so long: I live in the Rice and am watching this thing slowly come up.

 

We were sent this about the concrete pour slated for this weekend:

You could sell tickets. Charge by the minute or half hour. Can't bring your own beverage and jack the price up. Could make some serious money. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

Question to the engineers here... if when the pour is complete and dry a week from now they discover a crack, does that mean they have to chip the whole thing out and start over?

 

(Ducks)

 

Not an engineer, but have done a few submittals where as architects we look at stress samples to make sure that the mixture used follows the standards set in the specifications for the building.

 

All concrete cracks at some point. Its not a matter of if, but a matter of when and under what kind of load, and are the cracks enough to induce failure throughout the whole pour. There are tolerances that are allowed for cracking and to what degree the severity of the cracks are. Before they even start this pour they have probably, somewhere on site, poured a test core that essentially just sits on site. They let it settle and cure for the allotted time provided in the specifications. They will do multiple mixes and cores as well. On smaller jobs some GC's will try to weasel their way out of it, but for a skyscraper were the risk is severe, they will not mess around (at least you hope).

 

Probably should get @Purdueenginerd to explain further, but this is from an architect in training's perspective and experience thus far.

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Thanks @Luminare for the call out! Everything you stated is correct

 

6 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

Question to the engineers here... if when the pour is complete and dry a week from now they discover a crack, does that mean they have to chip the whole thing out and start over?

 

(Ducks)

 

Just to add, like many things it depends on the location of the crack, size of the crack and the type of crack. All concrete cracks. The curing process causes a volumetric shrinkage of concrete  (more specifically the cement crack). There's ways to mitigate it. The rebar/steel is one way. Your concrete mix design is another. For large placements like a matt foundation controlling temperature might also be part of the plan. The reinforcement in a foundation for a high rise is so dense that its unlikely to get significant cracking, at least discernible cracking to the human eye. When I get called out to look at cracks in a structure, the crack pattern, location, if its planar or faulted, and its width can tell me a lot about the cause and what to do as an engineer. 

 

But to answer your question. not often will a crack force the engineer, architect, and owner to ask(or demand) the GC to start over, if the problem can be solved within reasonable engineering judgement. But lets say that Matt Foundation is just absolutely covered in cracks, 1 foot apart, all relatively wide. This would be alarming. And after a lot testing, finger pointing, analysis, and probably litigation, the contractor might have to start over. On the other hand if there was 1 small crack, 30 feet long, not faulted in that entire foundation. I'd say epoxy inject it and move on. Funny enough I had a project a couple of years ago where the contractor cast a lot of non-structural decorative concrete for some area paving; and it cracked quite a bit. It didnt comply with the architects contract documents so the contractor had to tear it out and start over. So... the answer is : it depends!

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4 hours ago, keaton said:

EDIT: They are starting the street closures early, so the concrete pour is on.

 

I'm going to do a timelapse from my window. Should be pretty nifty to watch.

 

They pushed it back to this afternoon because of the chance for lightning.  

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And the first batch of concrete is starting now!

 

A little color that may not come across on the camera feed: there are probably 100-200 workers scattered around the site and spectators lined along the new parking garage to the north.

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5 minutes ago, ekdrm2d1 said:

Keaton,

 

Are you on the Market Square garage? See you soon :lol:

 

I am not, I'm watching from the Rice - but it's had a nice share of folks up there! Perfect temperature after a gloomy morning

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