Trump: This bridge was there during Obama years and he just did not take care of it. Very irresponsible of him.
Paul Ryan: We need tax cuts to fix this bridge.
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NRA: The problem is that the campus is a gun-free zone. If everyone was armed that bridge wouldnât have dared to fall.
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was monitoring the situation and would offer whatever support was needed.
Thoughts and prayers followed by document shredding.
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That pretty much always happens. The engineers blame the construction company, the construction company blames the engineers, and both of them blame the subcontractors who provided the cement, beams, girders, rebar etc.
Iâll have to do some research about the âaccelerated bridge constructionâ method that was used. Iâm not an engineer, but I do know that the old axiom of âGood, Fast, or Cheap - Pick Twoâ can be a cruel mistress.
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HmmmmâŚ
Construction Firms Behind Collapsed FIU Bridge Faced Accusations of Unsafe Practices
Two of the biggest firms that built the Florida International University pedestrian bridge that collapsed today have recently been accused of unsafe practices. In one of those cases, another bridge project toppled onto workers.
Yup. And when the choice is to go with âFast and Cheap,â watch out below.
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If this is how he intends to upgrade the infrastructure, no thanks. Iâd rather rely on the standards of the WPA.
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Lovely. Rick Scott is on his way there. Republican incompetence kills people, but as long as the rich get their tax cuts, everything is fine.
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The 3D computer rendering model shows a tower on one side with cables (or rods) supporting the bridge attached to the tower. Photos now online show (Monday morning) that after the bridge was installed the tower was not there.
What was supposed to hold the bridge up???
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It isnât possible for a bridge, designed to hold masses of students walking across, or gathering at the tables, to collapse less than a week after it is placed on its supporting âpostsâ, unless it was very badly designed, very poorly constructed, or build with very substandard materials. I think it will be determined that the use of âself cleaningâ cement, cement containing titanium oxide, is the problem. I know just enough to know that putting additives in concrete that serves a structural purpose is a very, very bad idea.
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Concrete has little tensile strength. I donât think it was the concrete.
At the time of the collapse there was a large crane near the spot where the tower should be. Were there temporary support cables being held up by the crane?
The foundation for the tower was part of the lifted span not the support structures on either side of the road. Rebar is clearly shown sticking up at that location. There was no tower.
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I think we have 3 bridges over the Animas river in town that were built off site, moved to the river and craned into place. I watched 2 of them get set.
I donât know the dimensions but the distance of the span seems similar.
They are strictly pedestrian and have no concrete whatsoever. They actually bounce a little when you cross them and if you try you can get them moving a bit.
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No issue with the first half of your comment, but I completely disagree with the concern that titanium oxide is the obvious thing to blame. Additives do indeed get added to structural concrete all the time for a variety of purposes. Very common practice in the industry. Iâm not an expert on titanium oxide specifically, but I donât see any documentation online stating that it has an inherent affect on concrete strength.
Itâs technically possible too add too much of any additive to a batch of concrete. Thereâs enough quality control in the concrete industry that I wouldnât quickly assume itâs the issue here. Numerous other aspects of construction are more prone to error.
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@hoppy Have to agree with @ntremus that additives to the concrete arenât likely to be willy-nilly and without some study beforehand. (Iâve got some years of experience in failure analysis in brittle materials, although on much smaller scales than here, so I know enough to be dangerous.) @thebigragu is correct that the tensile strength of concrete is quite low, so that in structures like this bridge, the concrete is maintained in compression by putting the steel reinforcements into tension. The steel components of these so-called âpre-stressedâ concrete structures are what carry virtually all the loads. Looking at the available photos of the collapse it appears to me that failure likely started near the support pylon which doesnât have a section of bridge still leaning of it (canât tell whatâs north-south-east-west here yet). This thing appears to be âsimply-supportedâ, as the mechanics boys term it, ie, just sitting there, rather than firmly attached/part of the end supports. In this case, the maximum bending stresses are at the center of the span, and there does seem to be a fractured zone at about the mid-point (at other points too, clearly, but one of those was the first). Unfortunately the recovery effort will damage/destroy some of the key evidence of what initiated the failure. Floridaâs got more than a few bridges, and presumably a handful of competent inspectors and engineers who will be able to reconstruct what happened with help from the NHTSA experts.
Obvious initial assessment: Somebody fucked up, most likely in âexecution/fabricationâ rather than design.
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Looks tentative to meâŚSept 2017 article:
Around the time the Feds raided his home this summer, Manafort was reportedly meeting with Yan Jiehe, head of Pacific Construction Group, Chinaâs largest, privately owned builder. The reason? Pacific was looking to buy U.S.-based construction firms, and Miamiâs Munilla Construction Management was floated as an option
Noting seems to have gone forward.
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Iâll say it again â the problem is at the top.
Itâs not the poor slugs like us doing our jobs. Somewhere up the chain, a âDonald Trump construction geniusâ decided something nutty would put a feather in his or her or their hats with the boss or the board, or save a few bucks on a budget that could be better put to use for executive lunches.
Us poor slugs have it beaten into our heads to âfollow ordersâ from managers who have no idea of the work we do or the skills we have. Thatâs to justify paying us little and taxing us more.
The problem in government and business is at the top.
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These random events killing innocents who were in the wrong time and wrong place has been a topic of contemplation for a long, long time. Big best seller in the early 1930âs was Thornton Wilderâs âThe Bridge At San Luis Reyâ. A bridge carrying 5 persons collapses carrying them to their deaths. Common high school English reading assignment back in the day. That ws before âCatcher In The Ryeâ and â1984â.
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More likely a subcontractor or cut-rate sourcing agent.
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When I find out Iâll post. But it wonât be for awhile.
I like to read engineering reports of failed structures - it is useful to know how things can go wrong.
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