Dive summary:
- The design of the Barclay's Center arena in Brooklyn, N.Y., has a series of weathered steel panels arrayed across its curtain-wall exterior, and an inspection disclosed that the 5/8-inch bolts used to mount them complied with the wrong ASTM standard.
- FacadeTek, which took over the job after a default by the previous contractor, is replacing 1,768 of the 23,351 bolts that hold the panels to either the curtain wall or to a steel frame.
- Inspectors say the use of the wrong bolts poses no danger because wind-tunnel tests of the design assumed it was an airtight wall, not a series of panels that are more like shingles and can pass air.
From the article:
"You would have to have so many events happening at one time in one spot to reach the capacity of the bolts, let alone exceed it," says (Israel) Berger, (CEO of the New York City-based curtain wall consultant, Israel Berger & Associates).
