montreal precast failure

huangyhg

montreal precast failure
from toronto globe and mail:
"léa guilbeault didn't have a chance. what began as a romantic birthday celebration ended in unimaginable horror for a montreal couple as a slab of concrete came crashing down on them in a downtown restaurant.
ms. guilbeault and her husband, hani beitinjaneh, were dining at a sushi bar in the atrium of the marriott residence inn on thursday night when the slab fell 18 storeys, killing the 33-year-old woman and injuring mr. beitinjaneh.
"it hit the woman right on the head, and her head was smashed," an emotional witness, kali subramanian, told montreal ctv news.
mr. beitinjaneh, also 33, who suffered serious injuries to his hand, was in shock as he was transported to montreal general hospital."
from the attached photograph it appears that the failure occurred at the precast connection.
a link
mike's link didn't work...try this one...
dik, you didn't attach anything.
there was little of engineering merit in the newsarticle... from the photograph, it looked like the connections had failed clean.
dik
so with a facade that large, i'm sure they are now wondering how many more connections are failing.

sounds familiar...
vibration testing should be performed on the balance of the facade prior to opening up the streets below.  any anomalies in the vibration may indicate a soon to fail connection.
teguci: how is vibration testing performed? is there a possibility of damaging the connection while testing? is there a standard for this test?
does anyone know who's precast system was involved in these incidents?  it would be good information to have when specifying this type of construction.  or good background when you are checking the "hell no" box on the submittal stamp!
several years ago as a junior engineer i worked in montreal and a portion of my work included facade inspections, including several buildings in the downtown area near this building. about 3 months ago my family and i returned to montreal for a few days vacation. our hotel was across the road from the building in question and my wife and i tried, unsucessfully, to entice our young kids to go for sushi in the very restaurant where this accident occurred.
while this type of event seems relatively rare, the results can often be catastrophic. it makes me think about how important these types of inspections are, how i can improve any future inspections that i may be involved with and also about ways the inspection process could be improved, especially when dealing with multiple hidden anchorages.
with keen interest, i await the results of the report and recommendations related to this story.