New Tests Find Anomalies in Coliseum Press Box Welds

New testing has found abnormalities in some welds that help support the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum press box, according to people familiar with the work.

Officials had ordered the testing in response to a May 5 Times article reporting numerous problems encountered during welding of the press box, which has been in use since the 1995 college football season.

Nabih Youssef, the structural engineer whose firm designed the press box, said in an interview that his firm will decide whether any repairs or retrofitting of the press box is necessary after evaluating the precise nature of the abnormalities.

Youssef said his engineers will begin their evaluation later this month, once other consultants provide them with the new testing data. For now, Youssef said, he has been advised by specialists that the anomalies are not significant enough to prevent use of the press box or the hundreds of spectator seats beneath it.

Based on what he has been told, Youssef said, the weld irregularities found by the recent ultrasound testing could be so-called “inclusions” of slag, or incomplete fusion between the welding material and adjoining steel surfaces.

Don C. Webb, a consultant who was hired by the Coliseum Commission to head the construction last year and is now leading the review of the structure, said the exact abnormalities have not yet been confirmed to him. Webb said he will await Youssef’s interpretation of the test data.

“I’m not prepared to say what those anomalies mean,” Webb said. He also described the number of affected welds as “very insignificant.” He declined to cite a number.

An executive of one of the construction firms hired to help examine the welds said he was aware of abnormalities that were discovered within the first three days of testing. The firm, Plas-Tal Manufacturing Co. of Santa Fe Springs, arrived at the Coliseum on May 7 to expose connections of the structural steel so that welds could be tested.

According to company Vice President Larry Vanderhoek, the firm also was hired to do repairs if problems were found. But Vanderhoek said Coliseum officials terminated the involvement of his and another firm, Matt Construction Corp., after the anomalies were discovered.

“We were supposed to effect the repairs and then the decision was made to let the original [steel] contractor handle that,” Vanderhoek said.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the Coliseum Commission, said he is appalled that the examination of the press box has for the past month been ceded to Webb and to contractors, some of whom are accountable for the original construction.

“It is an embarrassment to the commission,” Yaroslavsky said. “There is no apparent desire to get independent information. I’m fed up and I think the public has a reason to be concerned. . . . The first instinct the Coliseum Commission had [following the May 5 Times article] was to send the fox back into the chicken coop.”

Vanderhoek described the abnormalities brought to his attention as inclusions of slag in a few of the welds. He said the inclusions were found in welds around the floor level of the press box.

Both Youssef and Webb said Thursday that although they could not identify the exact nature of the weld abnormalities, no cracks have been found.

Slag inclusions can provide starting points for cracks, according to experts. The structural significance of slag inclusions depends in part on their position within a weld. An inclusion near the end of a weld would be viewed more seriously because it can indicate a lack of fusion between the welding material and the steel beam to which it adjoins. On the other hand, a tiny inclusion at the center of a weld would be considered less problematic.

Vanderhoek’s description of the slag inclusions was confirmed by others familiar with the matter, including the city’s chief building inspector, Russell E. Lane.

Both Lane and Vanderhoek said they were told by James E. Partridge, president of the inspection firm Smith-Emery Co., that the slag inclusions were not of major significance. Smith-Emery, which inspected the welds during construction, also has been authorized by the Coliseum Commission to perform some of the new testing. Partridge did not return calls Thursday seeking comment.

Commission officials, after at first saying they would do so promptly, have declined to release inspection documents that could illuminate what has been found. Commission President Roger A. Kozberg told Times reporters and editors last week that the new inspection data will be released at an unspecified time.

Lane, the chief city inspector, said Thursday he has been displeased that no documentation of the testing has been divulged by the Coliseum Commission or its contractors.

“I would have liked to have started seeing documentation immediately [the first week of May], when it was available,” Lane said.

Yaroslavsky won the support of Coliseum commissioners Wednesday to direct staff to enlist as-yet unspecified outside experts to conduct a “peer review” of the press box construction and inspection.

For now, control of the new testing data and the overall review of the press box’s structural integrity is under the control of Webb, the same consultant who was project manager for the construction last year, according to Kozberg, the commission president.

Kozberg noted Webb’s familiarity with the construction and said he saw no problem with allowing him to lead an investigation that could bear on Webb’s earlier performance. Kozberg termed Webb an “expert who is very good at what he does.”

Another commission member, county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, voiced some trepidation.

“If there is something wrong, he will certainly have to answer to the Coliseum Commission,” Burke told The Times last week, adding: “You do have to have a leap of faith to say that Don Webb will be honest and direct on this.”

Nevertheless, Burke said Webb’s ability to quickly oversee the new testing outweighed the potential advantage of retaining an independent person who might also cost the commission more money.

Webb said he is impartial and has no vested interest in promoting the design, steel work or the original inspection of the press box. “I’m interested in the truth,” he said, adding that some of the recent ultrasound testing has been performed by a Seattle firm not involved with the original construction.

At a Coliseum Commission meeting May 8, the structural engineers who designed the press box said they believed the facility to be sound. On that same day, the lead engineer, Youssef, certified in a letter to the city that based in part on his visual observation, he believed that the press box and its nearby seats were safe to occupy for a soccer match that evening.

Not disclosed fully at the meeting was an order issued that morning by the city building department directing the commission to “discontinue the use and occupancy of the press box and all seating” beneath it, unless the structural engineer and the Smith-Emery inspection firm certified, for the first time, that the structure was safe. The order also noted that an occupancy permit for the press box “has not been issued.”

After Smith-Emery and Youssef filed the certifications later that day, the city authorized use of the press box on an “event by event basis.” The next major event at the Coliseum is a Latin music concert scheduled for June 29.

Lane, the chief city building inspector, said Thursday that use of the press box and the seats beneath it will continue to require separate approvals, “until they provide us documentation showing” that any structural problems have been repaired.

Before a permanent occupancy permit can be issued, Lane said, the city will need a letter from Youssef, certifying that the press box was built in conformance with his design. Youssef has yet to provide such a letter.

The new press box was constructed as part of a $100-million renovation of the Coliseum after damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The renovation was paid for almost entirely with funds from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.