Thursday, August 02, 2007

Classic Video of a Collapsing Bridge

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse Video of 1940
Minnesota had one of the nation's better bridge-safety records, according to a 2006 report from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which found that 3 percent of Minnesota bridges were ranked as "structurally deficient" - a better record than all but 10 states. By contrast, 23 percent of Rhode Island's bridges were ranked as structurally deficient, 17 percent of Michigan's and 15 percent of Pennsylvania's."



Inspections, reports raise questions about bridge's safety
BY CHRISTOPHER SNOWBECK, MARY JO WEBSTER and DENNIS LIEN
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 08/02/2007 04:09:49 AM CDT

Bridge inspectors had noted structural problems over the years in the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River that collapsed Wednesday evening, but it was unclear whether obvious warning signs had been ignored.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday night that no structural deficiencies were found during bridge inspections in 2005 and 2006. The bridge deck was scheduled to be replaced in 2020 at the earliest, Pawlenty said, and legislators offered a similar assessment.

But public reports on the bridge raised questions about its safety.

In 2005, inspectors from the Minnesota Department of Transportation deemed the bridge "structurally deficient," in data submitted to the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge

Inspectors gave the bridge a sufficiency rating of 50 percent on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. A rating of 50 percent or lower means the bridge might need to be replaced.

The condition of I-beams, girders and other components called "structural members" was rated four on a scale of 0 to nine. A rating of 0 means failed, nine means excellent. Inspectors look at these for signs of distress such as cracking, deterioration, section loss and malfunction and misalignment of bearings. The deck received a rating of five and the substructure rating was six.

Components that have a tension element are supposed to receive extra attention, including a separate inspection every two years, because failure of these "would probably cause

a portion of or the entire bridge to collapse," according to the National Bridge Inspection Standards. The last such inspection, according to the FHWA data, was in June 2003.

No further details were immediately available.

Minnesota had one of the nation's better bridge-safety records, according to a 2006 report from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which found that 3 percent of Minnesota bridges were ranked as "structurally deficient" - a better record than all but 10 states. By contrast, 23 percent of Rhode Island's bridges were ranked as structurally deficient, 17 percent of Michigan's and 15 percent of Pennsylvania's.

Federal law requires all bridges to be inspected once a year, unless the state commissioner of transportation authorizes a two-year interval. The I-35W bridge was scheduled for annual inspections. Data on any inspections conducted in 2006 were not readily available Wednesday.

If the bridge had a troubled reputation, it was news to legislators.

"The fact MnDOT did not bring that forward and request funding tells me engineers did not have any reason to be concerned about its safety,'' Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said.

"If they know there was any risk with this bridge, that would be their highest priority with spending dollars,'' she said.

"We have never sensed there were any troubles with this particular bridge,'' said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis.

The I-35W bridge apparently is what state transportation officials consider a "fracture critical" bridge, meaning it has at least one critical tension member whose failure would be expected to result in a collapse of the bridge.

The bridge that collapsed supported four lanes in each direction, with average daily traffic of 141,000 vehicles in each direction, according to the FHWA.

Fatigue cracking had not occurred in the deck truss itself, according to a March 2001 report from civil engineers at the University of Minnesota. But there were "many poor fatigue details" on the main truss and floor truss systems. Even so, the engineers concluded that fatigue cracking of the deck truss was not likely.

"Replacement of this bridge, and the associated very high cost, may be deferred," the engineers wrote, according to a copy of the report on the Web site of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Still, engineers said the fatigue cracking was a serious issue due to the lack of redundancy in the main truss system. Only two planes supported eight lanes of traffic, they wrote.

"The truss is determinate and the joints are theoretically pinned," the report states. "Therefore, if one member were severed by a fatigue crack, the plane of the main truss would, theoretically, collapse."


8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. There are priorities in life, the political goings on in Baghdad and Ramadi, Iraq, are just more important to the US than the safety of US highways, bridges and infrastructure.

    As determined by Federal funding priorities. We just have to keep our priorities straight, stay the course, amigos y hermanos, stay the course!

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  3. "Therefore, if one member were severed by a fatigue crack, the plane of the main truss would, theoretically, collapse."

    hmmm, did theory meet reality?

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  4. Fixing things is never quite so much fun as building new. Look at the amount of new football and baseball stadiums versus numbers of old bridges fixed.

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  5. True! We really do trust our technology but when something like what just happens occurs it shakes that trust (assuming that it was simply structural failure). I don't like the idea of driving about wondering if the tunnel, bridge, or elevated skyway will just...collapse. Ahhh, faith is a funny thing.

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  6. There's a bridge under a lot of stress!

    It does seem the Minneapolis bridge was getting some poor grades on its recent report cards. Some Prius maybe, the straw that broke the camels back.

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  7. Well Ash,

    Unfortunately, it's not about faith. It's about your level of confidence; which could wane going forward. Safety, here at home. Perhaps the same feelings early man experienced, every day, on his way into the jungle.

    Pork and welfare are obviously more important than long-standing repair orders; at all levels of gov't. And, the pols who don't play, are voted out.

    So, there will be a general increase in gas taxes, at multiple levels, to fund more repair/ replacement; but the pork spending will continue.

    We have made the goal of gov'ts' to get bigger, not more efficient or effective. Leftists love it.

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  8. Consider that there were multple support trusses between the piers, all essentially separate structures. The odds on two simultaneous failures from any natural causes are astronomical, let alone the multiple trusses involved here.

    Only two mechanisms come to mind, earthquake(did not hsppen) or human.

    No Al Qaida claim, a latter day Tim McVeigh? Certainly pretty well organized if so. CIA is well organized, they would not want to claim it either.

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