On 20/08/2017 11:56, T i m wrote:
On Sun, 20 Aug 2017 10:54:06 +0100, ARW
wrote:

snip

And some better photos (sorry but it's the Daily Star)

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/late...e-car-dangling

And you can see from there the 'sprung mounted' Armco that is quite
common in such places.

Assuming it was sufficiently spaced from the wall that a vehicle
hitting it gently didn't bend it back to the wall (it would have to
'spring a load of brackets to do that) so that you got a shock load
onto the wall / cantilevered floor, it (the cantilever) does look like
it's just too thin to reliably support any real weight (over and above
itself and the wall etc) and not with any additional shock loads or
decay.

I think the main floor part are often pre cast drop-in 'beams' with
block infill and a solid surface floated over that?

As has been mention ... there seems to be a distinct lack of rebar
visible on any of the broken edges. Nothing 'dangling' off it in any
case?

Given the worst case loading scenario would be a (or several) fully
loaded small van like the Transit Connect (with it's short rear
overhang) where the rear axle could be on the cantilever rather than
the car-park floor itself ... the chances are that overhang wouldn't
typically see much load?

Unless the Tournio did actually hit the barrier and that was the final
straw for that bit of concrete section, even if it had arrived loaded
(with people in this case) I wouldn't have though it was that heavy
(judging by the relatively light loads our daughters LWB connect can
carry or tow) enough to put any critical strain on a properly designed
structure. It would certainly apply a greater load on the cantilever
than an average and especially 'booted' car though?

It will be interesting to see the results of any enquiry to find out
if any mistakes / shortcuts were found in it's construction. Makes you
think more of the sort of building work you hear of in India or Spain
rather than England eh! ;-(

I think one can conclude that the design / construction was
inadequate... in reality a car should be able to crash at speed into the
side wall, and even break through it, but you would not expect the floor
to fail along the whole side of the car park or the side wall to fail
away from the impact site.

(I get the impression that cars hitting the sides of car parks at speed
is a quite common occurrence - you only need see the number of reports
of cars that manage to leap across streets from a high level and land up
in or on buildings the other side of the road. Usually drivers with
automatic transmission and a stuck throttle cable - they start it, think
"oh its making a bit of noise", ignore that, then slap it in gear
anyway. Next thing they know, it sets off like a scaled cat and does a
good Batmobile stunt!)

--
Cheers,

John.

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