The leading concrete testing company in New York and its owner were convicted on Wednesday of falsifying the test results of different concrete mixes that were eventually used in some of the most prominent projects in the city. The verdict was a stunning defeat for the company, Testwell Laboratories, whose officials had denied any intent to defraud and said that any wrongdoing was limited to bookkeeping errors. Jurors are still considering a more serious charge, enterprise corruption, against Testwell and its owner, V. Reddy Kancharla. It carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. The jurors had yet to reach a verdict on that count when Justice Edward J. McLaughlin of State Supreme Court in Manhattan asked them to deliver the verdicts they had decided.
Testwell, a 41-year-old company with headquarters in Ossining, N.Y., was hired to evaluate the strength
not exactly, as it says farther in the article
of concrete used in projects including the new Yankee Stadium, the Freedom Tower and the Second Avenue subway line. Prosecutors and others familiar with the case have said that any falsified tests did not create safety hazards, although the stadium's concrete pedestrian ramps have been troubled by cracks that required repair.
There are a great many things involved in premature concrete cracking. Mix design is only one of them.The convictions delivered on Wednesday dealt with what are known as mixed-design reports.
Not mixed designs, moron, MIX designs. The design of concrete mixes or proportions.
For these reports, testers are supposed to put different concrete recipes through an eight-week analysis that involves making several batches of concrete and storing them in controlled environments. Each batch must then be put to a strength test that involves applying pressure until the concrete cracks, prosecutors said. Based on these tests, the inspectors recommend a formula for a project, prosecutors said.
But on hundreds of occasions, Testwell skipped these tests, instead relying on strength estimates tabulated in a computer program, prosecutors said.
Hey Frank, this looks like 47V, F, and W and 84 B and O, whaddaya say we just estimate the average? That's what the computer says.
In his opening statement, Paul Shechtman, who represents Mr. Kancharla, attributed inaccuracies in reports to either errors or bad practices by low-level employees.
The worst he's done is bill for tests instead of educated estimates.
After the guilty verdicts on Wednesday, Thomas D. Thacher II, president of Thacher Associates, a company hired by Testwell customers to review several of Testwell's projects, said: "Anybody who is certifying as to issues that affect safety and structural integrity must be double-checked. It's too easy to cheat and the incentives are too great, and the Testwell conviction demonstrates that."
I agree, Tom. But he was not certifying to safety or integrity, and I bet you stand to gain some work out of his failure.
The journalist referred to it as "mixed designs". It is the design of a concrete mix -- a mix design. This is not falsifying tests, this is guessing about the best mix based on experience, backed up by the computer, when you should be running a test in case the gravel hardness had changed, or sand gradation was different from the last 200 mix designs.But if you use the wrong mix design, it is only not an optimum mix. That hurts the contractors, not the State or the Customer. If the mix design is poor, more of the concrete tests in the field will fail. Failing concrete is replaced. If those tests are falsified, then you have a right to worry about the public good. As it is, it is just as likely that these estimates resulted in concrete just a little too strong.
A bit of perspective, too: In over 4,000 tests at my previous project, which I recorded and plotted, where the one mix design was prepared for 4,000 psi concrete, we had about 4 tests below that minimum. So few, and so close to the minimum that the specifications say they can be ignored. The average for the 4,000 psi mix design was 6,250 psi. The highest strength was over 8,000 psi. The wrong mix design might have resulted in the average being 6,100 psi, or 6,500 psi. Failing concrete would still be replaced.
This is a show trial, by an overzealous prosecutor, with ignorant attornys, and even dumber jurors. If he gets more than probation, it'll be a travesty. But it's New York City, and The New York Times.
| Here endeth this session of Rantburg U. Thank you, Professor Bobby. |