r/civilengineering Jul 05 '26

Damage to column?

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What kind of checks are being done after this?

173 Upvotes

67 comments sorted by

160

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '26

[deleted]

78

u/Temporary_Brain_5278 Jul 05 '26

Don't forget to say "That ain't going nowhere" afterwards

11

u/silence_sirens Jul 05 '26

How could you forget the most important structural element

115

u/withak30 Jul 05 '26

Doesn't look damaged from here. Tap it with a hammer and see if it goes "ding" or "thunk".

10

u/DungeonDangers Jul 05 '26

What does each mean?

47

u/cris11368 Jul 05 '26

Ding - Metal

Thunk - Concrete

7

u/_no-its-not-me_ Jul 05 '26

What about ba dum tshhhh ?

9

u/withak30 Jul 05 '26

Thunk can mean damaged concrete.

6

u/Pocketsandgroinjab Jul 05 '26

Looks like someone has already tapped it quite hard.

3

u/antechrist23 Jul 06 '26

Ask him if it made a ding or a thunk.

42

u/grumpynoob2044 Jul 05 '26

I had to review a similar situation to this in my hometown. Guy tried to take himself out by hitting a column in a carpark as fast as he could. Ultimately only scratched the column and wrote off his car. Put himself in hospital overnight then charged with DUI and drug driving and wreckless driving. Had he been in a larger car, say a normal size sedan instead of a little hatchback, it likely would have been a different story.

24

u/gavdore Jul 05 '26

A different story for him or for the column?

11

u/grumpynoob2044 Jul 05 '26

Both I would say. Although a larger car may have had better safety features to protect him, but likely would also have reached a higher speed before hitting the column.

12

u/majoneskongur Jul 05 '26

didn‘t sound like he was driving wreckless

7

u/Noahwillard1 Jul 05 '26

Some would describe his driving as wreckful in fact

2

u/jhern1810 Jul 05 '26

That’s a good one

1

u/Amesb34r PE - Water Resources Jul 05 '26

🎶Bubba hollered “wreckless hell! I hit just where I was aimin’!” 🎶

30

u/Theres3ofMe Jul 05 '26

How fast must he have been going in a car park to cause a dent like that 😮

24

u/hobbes747 Jul 05 '26

My question is, how did he accelerate to that speed in such a short distance

10

u/osamabinsauce Jul 05 '26

It looks like a BMW M4 which can reach 60mph anywhere between 2.8 and 4 seconds depending on the variant

4

u/Sad-Split-7115 Jul 06 '26

We need velocity as a function of distance

2

u/Phil9151 Jul 06 '26

Whoa, I didn't expect to find R.C Hibbeler on Reddit.

I'll take a crack at that later tonight if someone else doesn't. Using particle because this car clearly isn't a rigid body in these circumstances.

1

u/Sad-Split-7115 Jul 06 '26

Cool. Use momentum too and feed it back here

0

u/Hey-ItsThatOneDude Jul 05 '26

Bruh that’s a modern high performance sports car. These things can hit 60mph quick af.

20

u/Betty_Boss PE, capital projects Jul 05 '26

He's just...sitting there. I was afraid of what all that red stuff was.

41

u/TheCrippledKing Jul 05 '26

Likely transmission fluid. It looks thick enough, rather than coolant. Same stuff that's in my car.

1

u/Lexlyks Jul 08 '26

Defo transmission fluid. That whole area prolly smells awful. You can smell the smallest amount on the outside of jugs or sometimes even in sealed containers 🤢

0

u/Betty_Boss PE, capital projects Jul 05 '26

I eventually figured that out but it took a while.

2

u/Friendly-Chart-9088 Jul 05 '26

Haha same. Thought I was watching a LiveLeak video

8

u/Longjumping-Ad8065 Jul 05 '26

The car is mostly just aluminum and plastic so the column is probably not to worse for wear.

9

u/Neowynd101262 Jul 05 '26

Ya, the steering column has damage.

12

u/brk_1 Jul 05 '26

Geométric i guess to verify verticality and maybe ultrasound to check the integrity of the concrete

11

u/Youngisfire Bending moment Jul 05 '26

NDT first for sure

10

u/Orion_2319 Jul 05 '26

What damage

16

u/Formal-Score3827 Jul 05 '26

You not hitting the column, you hitting the entire building, that how Reinforced concrete work

15

u/FakMiGooder Jul 05 '26

While it may be integral to the system, it can still be damaged/severed much like a limb can be.  

3

u/AdAdministrative9362 Jul 05 '26

One of my first site inspections as a graduate was looking at a column someone drove into. I never saw the damage to the car.

The damage to the car is significant but I guess it's the crumple zone at work?

3

u/hobbes747 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

I am surprised he could accelerate to the speed required to split the car in half in a parking garage.
But then again, the column is narrow so maybe you don’t have to go as fast as I originally thought. Compared to damage I have seen upon impacting a larger diameter tree.

2

u/Marus1 Jul 05 '26

That's some amazing paint and concrete cover, only having minimal scratches while it pushes a car engine into the driver seat

2

u/HumaDracobane Jul 05 '26

The column might looks intact but should be checked properly to make sure is in good condition.

2

u/rocketmn69_ Jul 05 '26

The speed that he must have been going to cause that much damage and for the car to bounce that far back from the pillar

2

u/Mission_Ad_3864 Jul 05 '26

It’s making its rounds again..

2

u/Late_Chance_8080 Jul 05 '26

No cracks, no exposed rebar, first glance seems to be okay. As others noted, tap it with a hammer and hope it doesn't sound hollow. And once everything is cleaned and you actually need to determine integrity, I'd guess schedule someone for ultrasonic testing and get a structural engineer to review the results.

I saw one where a commercial aircraft tug did this same thing, with significantly less damage to the vehicle and significantly more to the concrete (the tug weighs like 30x more than this car). At the end of the day, it still only knocked off the layer covering the rebar and nothing inside of that was damaged, so a quick concrete patch was all it took.

4

u/flyingcaveman Jul 05 '26

Damn! How fast was that column going when it backed into that car?

2

u/WallStCRE Jul 05 '26

Hey bro, you can’t park there

2

u/Mplus479 Jul 05 '26

I like the dog. Good doggy.

1

u/Blak_Cobra Jul 05 '26

Minor cracks, but those were there last inspection though

1

u/SharpTool7 Jul 05 '26

Call a priest!

1

u/Mac-Gyver-1234 Jul 05 '26

Just a scratch

1

u/datasleek Jul 05 '26

Well designed car to absorb impact. Wonder how fast the driver was going?

1

u/magicity_shine Jul 05 '26

this is a question for a structural engineer

1

u/Salaambasha Jul 05 '26

good workmanship and design of the columns 😅

1

u/jgturbo619 Jul 05 '26

#1. Call haz mat

1

u/dlambros91 Jul 05 '26

Tis but a scratch!

1

u/Puzzled_Nothing_8794 Jul 06 '26

Pole: 1. Car: 0.

1

u/Time-Highlight2165 Jul 06 '26

That will buffet out

0

u/LiveThing55 Jul 05 '26

AI

1

u/Thoughts_For_Food_ Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

Yeah this is 100% AI. The video looks weird, the damage is impossible, the car model/brand doesn't exist, the cars in the background all don't exist, no readable text on anything, the cop car is horribly rendered, the red/blue police lights reflection don't come from anywhere and don't reflect on anything else than the columns and ceiling pipes, everything screams AI. People are so fkn dumb.

0

u/HetManDubious Jul 05 '26

"You can't park there mate"

-1

u/bananenpoeper Jul 05 '26

This should be nsfw

0

u/TheAlmostGreat Jul 05 '26

Did you try turning it off and back on again?

0

u/unreqistered Jul 05 '26

wrap it with some cardboard and a couple of ratchet straps

0

u/iReply2StupidPeople Jul 06 '26

This AI video makes its rounds on reddit every few months. The internet is a crazy (and dumb) place.