I was wondering if anyone had any bad experiences with parking garages. The one I'm working on at this time is an inspection nightmare. Not only am I forced to inspect in a dirty dark invironment, but now I'm finding throat cracks all over the place. I first thought it was a temperature issue, then transverse stess issue but I'm now leaning toward the welders technique. I know there using galvanized plates I havent seen any one them groundl Its always the same joint. I could be wrong, it may be stress related. Just curious if anyone else had this cracking issue on parking garages.

One of the problems I've seen with some precast parking garages is that they are not always detailed for normal temperature expansion and contraction.  In some cases, 80% of the precast girder or deck beam welds fail at the seats.  It is usually the worst at the top floor which experiences the most weather/sunshine.  It doesn't matter since there is usually lots of "seat" for the beam to sit on and nothing falls down.  But a decent earthquake will bring them down  (in Southern California, at least).

Does this sound like what your are seeing?

I can't believe they welded without grinding the galvanizing, though.

Bob