Mohawk—Hudson Section

American Society of Civil Engineers—Region 1

Web Site Last Update:

December 1, 2008

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ASCE

American Society

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American Society of Civil Engineers

This page will be used to highlight issues in Civil Engineering that are of interest to our members and encourage discussion and exchange of ideas.

 

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The Minnesota DOT has developed a website with the current status of rebuilding the I-35W Mississippi River Crossing.  See http://projects.dot.state.mn.us/35wbridge/

NTSB Says Design Flaw Found in I-35W Bridge

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) today announced that a serious design flaw was found in some of the gusset plates on the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, which collapsed on Aug. 1, 2007. As a result, the NTSB issued a recommendation that the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) require bridge owners to verify that the stress levels in all structural elements, including gusset plates, remain within applicable requirements whenever planned modifications or operational changes may significantly increase stresses. This would apply to all non-load-path-redundant steel truss bridges within the National Bridge Inventory. ASCE will continue to monitor the NTSB’s investigation and will incorporate the recommendations and lessons learned into our future technical and professional policies and standards.  ASCE urges its members to review the NTSB's report and recommendations

National Transportation Safety Board Safety Recommendation

 

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION TURNER-FAIRBANK HIGHWAY RESEARCH CENTER REPORT Adequacy of the U10 & L11 Gusset Plate Designs for the Minnesota Bridge No. 9340  (I-35W over the Mississippi River)  INTERIM REPORT

 

 

Champion Needed

        An Associated Press Report from Thursday, August 16, related the discovery of two more sets of human remains amid the wreckage of the interstate bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. That raised the known death toll to 11. The report went on to say that navy divers were continuing their efforts.

        For me, the context through which to view the above information was the article “The Vision for Civil Engineering for 2025,” which appeared in the August issue, along with the Editor’s Note in that issue. In reading these two pieces, it is interesting to note how many times the word “master” appears, along with the concept, in one form or another, of trust by society. Lest one take offense at the use of the word “master,” it can be defined as one who has special knowledge and is willing to serve society’s most pressing needs.

        Then, keeping the Associated Press report above in mind, consider the national and state lists recently published of the dangerous conditions related to so many of our bridges that are in use today.

        The most frequent response I hear from engineers when such a matter surfaces is roughly as follows: “We documented our findings and presented them to the client for their action.” In the case of the most recent failure in Minneapolis, engineers told the state to repair their bridge. They didn’t. People died.

        Given the dramatic loss of life and the front-page coverage reminiscent of the walkway collapse in 1982 at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, the past suggests that we can expect the following steps:

 

A blue-ribbon panel;

More seminars on professional liability insurance and policy rewrites;

Yet another manual produced some three to five years from now.

 

        Meanwhile, right now the water supply pipelines in out older cities are leaking at volumes that-according to my readings-boggle the imagination, infrastructure for handling floods remains suspect, and subways have reached ages in the range of 50 to 70 years. And some engineers (see the Letters section of the August issue) are saying that they should have made a stronger case for infrastructure improvements.

        Yet today we have expert engineers who could stand at a microphone on national television and simply tell the truth, but they do not. That truth, for example, would include the following statements:

 

There are bridges in existence that we are surprised haven’t failed already, and we have noted this in reports to out clients.

There are other bridges in very bad shape, and we have noted this in reports to our clients.

As a minimum, right now, we need to place “Bridge closed” signs on the bridges in category 1 above and signs that read ‘No school buses” and “One lane only at 25 mph” on the bridges in category 2.

A number of the bridges on both lists would probably also warrant the sign “you cross this bridge at your own risk.”