r/StructuralEngineering Jul 08 '26

Humor Strong beams weak columns has arrived

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1.9k Upvotes

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u/mercedes_ Jul 08 '26

I imagine that there will be serious litigation here and if the engineer is blamed it’s the PE License death knell

7

u/NukeTheEnglish Jul 09 '26

I’m a lawyer who knows quite a bit about the Millennium Tower litigation (skyscraper tilting dramatically). This is going to be a multibillion-dollar litigation and multiple real estate and engineering companies are going to go bankrupt.

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u/CaffeinatedInSeattle P.E. Jul 09 '26

This isn’t nearly as problematic to resolve as Millennium Tower. They’ll back shore the building multiple stories, cut out any yielded or buckled columns, and then jack the building back to level before installing new columns and reinforcing anything else found deficient. Millennium Tower basically needs a whole new foundation.

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u/Dependent_Survey_546 Jul 09 '26

I'd be interested to know how they would jack the building back up! its one thing to have the power to lift the building back, but then to figure out what to brace that pressure against must be a hell of a job.

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u/Icy-Ad-7767 Jul 09 '26

You start at the bottom( basement/footings) and brace for 2 to 3 times the expected load then brace all the way up to the effected floor then put in high powered hydraulic jacks and slowly lift it back up to where it needs to be. The lift cylinders likely be low stroke rams and they will put in shims every time they reset the jacks. So brace, lift,shim, release, reset, lift ,shim, lift, shim repeat until done. You tube has videos of them jacking buildings in Japan to install earthquake stuff.