The Science of Bridge Collapse Prevention

toddatcw writes "In the wake of the Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge collapse this week, Computerworld investigates ongoing research which could someday help to prevent future disasters. Acoustic emissions detection systems, which listen for the sounds of metal snapping on structures, are already sold and fitted. Likewise, a new generation of detector systems that monitor for tilting of bridge columns and piers are being designed, prototyped, and researched. 'Sound waves move more efficiently through solid objects than through air, making any sounds easier to listen out for, Tamutus said. "It's not amazing. It's simple. Doctors use stethoscopes all the time. If you put your ear on a train track, you can hear a train approaching from far away... The Sensor Highway II systems, which are portable and can be moved from bridge to bridge as needed, usually cost between $20,000 to several hundred thousand dollars each. Typically, evaluations take between one day and a week.'"

Comments

the sky is falling again...

[llZENll]

Jesus people, I guess it's time to waste a billion dollars making sure all of our bridges our safe, or the terrorists have won. Honestly though, it is sad that innocent people died, but come on, what is the death toll, like 5-20. Everyones attention, money, and time would be much better spent fighting more important problems, like cancer and heart disease. Anything more than having a few engineers look into some old bridges they built is overkill. Are there not laws requiring continual safety reviews of major public structures already?

I Have an Idea

[Greyfox]

When the bridge is rated the second worst thing it can be rated during an inspection, maybe someone should actually fix the goddamn thing! I think there might be some sort of cause and effect relationship there. When guys who know about bridges tell you your bridge sucks, you fix it! Same thing goes for when your dam guys tell you your dam can't withstand a hit from that category 5 hurricane that's coming right for you, maybe you should think about, oh I don't know... evacuating your city!

Perhaps, and I'm going out on a limb here, but stay with me here... maybe if we wouldn't elect people who are fucktarded to positions of power and maybe if we didn't stand for it when they appoint their fucktarded and inexperienced cronies to tell them what they want to hear instead of what's actually going on, maybe we wouldn't have problems like this. Now I admit, the fucktarded person is appealing. He's promising that if you elect him he'll crap flowers and fairies and all sorts of other shit that could not possibly be funded in the current situation. But you know all he's going to do is loot the state and leave all the citizens holding the bag. So for God's sake just use some common sense and try to vote for the guy who sounds like he will, too.

Blah. You know no one will be held responsible for this, and I'm willing to bet that there's a single person who said "You know what, that bridge will hold up for another year..." when they were redirecting those highway funds to some other pet project.