New Orleans VA Parking Garage Nondestructive Evaluation

In early 2014, Walter P Moore performed a nondestructive evaluation of the Veteran’s Administration New Orleans (VANO) facility parking garage under construction. The garage will be part of a new medical complex included in a new 2.4-square-mile biomedical corridor.

During erection of ground level garage columns, reinforcement conflicts arose in which the anchor rods for the precast concrete column elements interfered with longitudinal reinforcement within the cast-in-place concrete piers supporting the columns. Due to the conflict, Walter P Moore was retained to determine the as-built reinforcements in the column splices and characterize the quality of the grout within the precast concrete joints.

Based on the accuracy required and quick turnaround time needed for results, we performed additional testing at all columns and wall splices throughout the garage. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used to determine reinforcement configurations and Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) testing was used to characterize overall grout quality.

The test results revealed incorrectly altered reinforcement configurations of column splices and grout joint voids at numerous locations.