Silver Spring Transit Center, Montgomery Co. & the Laws of Physics

Montgomery Co. MD and its paid and unpaid consultants would have us believe that the Montgomery County council has repealed the laws of physics.

In March 2013 Montgomery County posted a report that they commissioned on the county website. The report documents severe cracking in the yet-to-be-completed, $130+ million Silver Spring Transit Center. 

In addition to documenting widespread cracking throughout the SSTC's concrete slabs, beams, girders and columns, the report identifies that the 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC doesn't have any expansion/contraction joints. Standard construction practice and WMATA design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, require expansion/contraction joints be located in structures exposed to temperature changes. WMATA design and construction standards require that expansion/contraction joints be located no farther than 100 feet apart. 

a small "accoutrement" that the SSTC's public-private partnership failed to provide every 100 feet

The SSTC, a football field wide and almost two long, has no expansion/contraction joints, defying the laws of physics, and in particular, the law of thermal expansion. The laws of physics won't be defied; so, the SSTC cracks.

Ongoing "repairs" (a latex concrete overlay and external reinforcement for under-designed beams) ignore the SSTC's complete lack of expansion/contraction joints. As a result, the SSTC can be expected to continue to crack after ongoing "repairs" are complete.

Sorry, Montgomery Co. council. As much as you'd like to repeal the laws of physics, you can't.  
http://pileofsteamingbs.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-does-us-state-dept-montgomery-co.html

Silver Spring Transit Center