Document About Tests of Coliseum Welds Disputed

When engineers recently gave final approval to the press box at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, they relied on an inspection firm’s representation that several structural steel columns had been properly scrutinized.

But interviews and newly obtained documents show that the columns were not inspected as claimed. The inspector who is purported to have examined the columns told The Times that he did not test any of the steel or welds that arrived at the Coliseum during construction last year from an off-site shop.

The representation that he did examine the 20-foot-tall columns was made in a document submitted to project officials in August by the inspection firm, Smith-Emery Co.

“I don’t know why people would do something like this,” inspector Mark Hughart said, referring to handwriting printed at the top of the document stating, “Field Retest.” Said Hughart: “It’s a bunch of malarkey.”

City officials who reviewed the document at the request of The Times, including Russell E. Lane, chief of inspection for the city Department of Building and Safety, said that it could not be considered valid because Hughart did not sign it.

But the Coliseum project engineer relied on this document whenhe formally certified the press box Sept. 3--withdrawing his yearlong reservation about “several” of the structure’s so-called box columns.

Officials had required the certification of the project engineer, Nabih Youssef, before they would issue a city occupancy permit for the Coliseum press box. With his signature, Youssef certified that the structure was “constructed in conformity” with his design.

If any of the welds or columns were not tested with ultrasound during the construction, defects that could undermine structural performance in an earthquake may have been built into the press box, according to experts.

Spanning 40 yards and hanging out over more than 600 spectator seats, the press box is used year-round at the Coliseum for activities including concerts, soccer matches and college football games.

In response to a May 5 Times article that reported numerous problems with the construction, testing with ultrasound was conducted on 47 of the press box welds over the past few months. That testing found defects in 12, or 26%, of the connections that were examined. Repairs have been made to those welds.

However, not all of the steel was examined in the recent testing. For instance, the Coliseum Commission voted 5-3 in August not to retest three box columns for separations in the steel that, if present, could compromise structural performance during an earthquake.

Members of the commission had been assured by Smith-Emery that all of the press box welds and the box columns had already been tested with ultrasound during construction either at the shop or at the Coliseum.

Robert A. Milliron, a welding engineer who has reviewed the Coliseum problems at the request of The Times, said his concern would be heightened if the box columns or other welds were not tested as required during the original construction.

“They’ve already found 26% defects in the completed structure,” Milliron said. “That should tell you something. Any time you’re over 10%, you’re in trouble. That is not normal.”

Youssef, the Coliseum project engineer, declined to be interviewed. He has said previously that he believes the press box, which has been in use since September 1995, is safe.

The president of Smith-Emery, the firm that recently submitted the disputed inspection report, declined to say whether he thinks the document shows that the columns were, in fact, tested.

“You’d have to ask Mark Hughart,” said James E. Partridge, whose firm oversaw the construction in 1995. Partridge said he is “not certain” who from his firm submitted the document two months ago.

Lanson Nichols, the Coliseum project architect, said Thursday that the document was “transmitted directly from Smith-Emery to Nabih Youssef’s office.”

The work of Smith-Emery and other companies has come under review by the Coliseum Commission after Times articles in May and June reporting numerous construction problems and that no city occupancy permit had been issued for the press box. The structure was built almost entirely with federal emergency funds after damage to the Coliseum from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Coliseum officials at first denied any structural problems existed, but they ultimately ordered the testing and the recent repairs to those welds that were found defective.

During the same time frame, Coliseum project specialists began attempting to resolve other construction shortcomings that had prevented issuance of the occupancy permit. Youssef, the project engineer, had balked at certifying the structural adequacy, citing eight “outstanding construction issues.”

One of those eight issues involved the premature shipment to the Coliseum, in summer 1995, of what Youssef’s firm termed “several” vertical box columns. The columns were fabricated at a steel shop in San Bernardino and were shipped early, violating a cooling-off period imposed by the engineers.

The new press box is supported by a succession of seven vertical box columns and roof trusses. To best detect potential defects in the steel, Youssef’s firm had required that final ultrasonic testing of any box column and its welds be performed no sooner than 24 hours after the welds had cooled.

In a Nov. 15, 1995 report, Youssef’s firm concluded that “compliance with the waiting period for ultrasonic testing was not met on several box columns.” By August of this year, with the college football season about to begin and pressure mounting to resolve the matter, the inspection firm at last submitted documentation to Youssef’s engineering firm.

The document, bearing inspector Hughart’s name and dated July 21, 1995, purports to verify that the prematurely shipped box columns and related welds were, indeed, tested with ultrasound during the original construction at the Coliseum.

With the document in hand, the Youssef firm on Aug. 28, 1996, declared the issue of the prematurely shipped columns “CLOSED. Written verification of field retesting for all columns has been received.”

Smith-Emery’s “verification” came in a one-page document that is typically used as a formal certification that work complies with all applicable construction standards. The document, called a “B-94” report, is used by inspectors who function as actual deputies of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.

But Hughart, the inspector whose name appears on the “B-94” document, said in interviews that he did not test any columns or welds at the Coliseum that had been fabricated at the steel shop in San Bernardino. Nor, he said, was he asked to do so by Smith-Emery. The Times obtained this and other recently submitted project documents under the California Public Records Act.

A more detailed report of Hughart’s work during the time in question--kept on file by Smith-Emery and designated for distribution to the city, the Coliseum Commission and Youssef’s engineering firm--makes no mention of Hughart testing any box columns or welds shipped from the off-site shop.

Hughart, who left Smith-Emery in good standing late last year to work for another inspection firm, said the only steel he tested with ultrasound were those connections made by welders at the Coliseum job site.

Yet Hughart has been cited by Smith-Emery’s president over the past few months as one of two inspectors who “double-checked” the shop-produced welds at the Coliseum site last year. Of those two inspectors, records show, only Hughart was certified to use ultrasound.

Partridge, the president of Smith-Emery, has repeatedly assured the Coliseum Commission that any prematurely shipped steel was tested with ultrasound once it arrived at the Coliseum last year. Partridge was first pressed publicly on this after The Times reported on May 5 that no documentation was on file to verify that more than 40 welds, rejected by Smith-Emery shop inspectors, were ever repaired or otherwise accepted.

County Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky both questioned Partridge at a May 8 Coliseum Commission hearing, regarding whether welds shipped early from the shop were actually tested by inspectors when the steel arrived at the Coliseum.

“We double-checked all the steel, in the field,” Partridge told the commission, saying that he had a “written record” to verify his statement. He added: “So the welding and the testing that’s been done should allay your concerns. . . . We believe 100% [of the shop welds], from reading our reports, had been retested in the field.

”. . . After we found out what was going on in the shop, [we] ordered the steel in the field to be double-checked. . . . We did visual inspection and then we also did ultrasound inspection in the field.”

Asked about those statements on Thursday, Partridge said he has nothing left to substantiate regarding the inspections.

“The structure has been inspected,” Partridge said. “I think it’s done. . . . I did my level best to indicate to the structural engineer what was inspected,” Partridge said.

The question of whether box columns were adequately tested comes in addition to the documented problems encountered with three other columns during fabrication at the shop in San Bernardino.

The three columns, as reported by The Times on June 28, were rejected by inspectors because separations, known as “laminations,” were detected in the plates that box in the pillars. In an extraordinary turnabout, the columns were ultimately accepted by Smith-Emery last year--without a major repair recommended by an engineer at Youssef’s firm.

The inspector who had allowed the steel to be shipped from the shop to the Coliseum, Dennis Johnson, recommended in a June 1995 report that the columns be retested, in the field, for laminations. Hughart, the inspector who was at the Coliseum, said none of the columns were rechecked for laminations.

Coliseum officials have said publicly they would consider seeking remuneration for the costs of the recent testing and repairs if they found negligence on the part of any of the original contractors.