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Engineering Experts Knew Italian Bridge Had Corrosion Problems Before It Collapsed, Report Says (apnews.com)
McGruber shares a report: Engineering experts determined in February that corrosion of the metal cables supporting the Genoa highway bridge had reduced the bridge's strength by 20 percent -- a finding that came months before it collapsed last week, Italian media reported Monday. Despite the findings, newsmagazine Espresso wrote that "neither the ministry, nor the highway company, ever considered it necessary to limit traffic, divert heavy trucks, reduce the roadway from two to one lanes or reduce the speed" of vehicles on the key artery for the northern port city. A large section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed Aug. 14 during a heavy downpour, killing 43 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 600 people living in apartment buildings beneath another section of the bridge.
If corrosion weekend the cables by 20% of so, it seems like the original design didn't leave nearly enough margin for error!
I imagine they were not as concerned with 20% weakening thinking they had much more leeway.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
private owned toll road the profit lost from an shutdown is to high just fix in place.
Unless the bridge was already built less strong than specified and the extra 20% was just the tipping point, or there were other factors involved that made the bridge collapse...
Another example: In Italy, many things are built outside specification due to mafia involvement... because taking shortcuts made it possible to pocket construction money. I'm not saying it happened here but it's just to give you another possibly 'far fetched' explanation.
You shouldn't put the blame on someone specific (also named: scapegoating) unless research into this catastrophe has a chance to finish and hopefully will find out what really happened... And lets pray that can be done without politics involved because this collapse already seems to be a highly laden subject in that regard.
it's the people who estimated the strength loss factor, not the people who did nothing once they found out.
They both failed at their jobs resulting in loss of life, by the sound of it. And maybe both will see jail time; after all Italy prosecuted a couple of geologists for failing to predict an earthquake.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Beautiful but also fragile. See Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If the bridge was only over-engineered by 20%, then it would be a disaster to keep using it.
It seems like the engineers have been opposed to this bridge design from the beginning, pointing out the impending disaster since 2012, and advising limiting traffic and building an alternate route. But good luck getting politicians in a democracy to spend money on infrastructure (even when given money by the EU specifically for infrastructure).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It was an old bridge (circa '67), with lots of other problems too - including the fact that traffic had quadrupled since it was designed. Engineers have been expressing concerns since the 90s. And witnesses say it was also struck by lightning just before collapsing. So it wasn't a simple matter of just corrosion-weakened cables.
But yes, if it was only over-engineered by 20% it would have collapsed decades ago.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Itâ(TM)s not just that, the bridge was hopelessly overloaded by traffic.
Have you ever driven in New York City? Every bridge is totally full of traffic nearly 24x7, during rush hour basically parked (it took me an hour once to cross George Washington bridge leaving NYC near rush hour). That happens every day, including in driving rainstorms... bridges are usually built assuming the bridge is packed with trucks, during the worst storm imaginable (including many feet of snow, far worse than rain), then use safety margins well beyond that. It seems the designers of this bridge cut some corners.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They both failed at their jobs resulting in loss of life, by the sound of it.
If by "failed" you mean "consistently warned about the impending disaster for the past 6 year, while politicians openly mocked the warnings", then sure.
And maybe both will see jail time
Probably so. It's not like the politicians who blocked funding of an alternate route are going to let any consequences affect themselves.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The main reason for government to privatize anything is to help their non-government corporate friends make tax-payer money. The second reason is so that when shit inevitably happens due to all the profit taking instead of maintenance, the government can pass the blame out of government so their political greedy ass can keep it's 'job'.
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
One article I read said there was a good likelihood the bridge was constructed using less concrete than specified, because the mafia was heavily involved in bidding for these projects at the time. One of their favorite ways to win low bids for construction was skimping on the concrete used.
Twitter will not solve the "mistery" - a proper investigation will do. I know it will take time but at least it will cut sensationalism. Just give it a time.
I-35w bridge collapse was USA's wake-up-call!
When they identified corrosion problems with the main cables on this bridge, they installed dehumidifiers for the cables. They also built a replacement bridge and now use the older bridge as a public transport route, a traffic level it can easily cope with. Perhaps this should have been done with this bridge too ?
One article I read said there was a good likelihood the bridge was constructed using less concrete than specified
Sad if so - you'd really hope there would be final checks in place to prevent things like that from crippling a major building project!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So the bridge is 0.8 * X strong. How big is X? How big did X need to be?
A two-fold factor of safety is normal in projects like this, so if the bridge is 0.8 * X strong, it should still be 60% than it needs to be. And civil engineers tend to be a cautious lot; after several rounds of review of something like a bridge it tends to end up grossly over-designed as each engineer adds an additional margin of safety to the prior engineer's work. So there should be no way that a bridge that has lost 20% of its strength is dangerous.
So this raises a number of questions. Did the inspectors miss something? Was the bridge improperly designed for the load it was carrying? Was it not built according to the design? Those are all possibilities. It could be a combination of them.
The Kansas City Hyatt pedestrian bridge collapse was due to two factors. First, the original design did not meet building codes; but even so the design should have been able to support as many people on the bridge as could fit. Second, changes were made to the design as the bridges were constructed, such that the bridges could barely support their own weight. Now had the original design been as strong as the code called for, the disaster wouldn't have happened. Had it been built to the original, inadequate design, the disaster wouldn't have happened.
The point is disasters can be complicated affairs involving many errors. While in this case the rust no doubt contributed to the failure, it may not be the only thing that went wrong.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The bridge's sorry state was known years ago. A certain political party used the "environmentalist" demagoguery to keep the status quo.
And now the same people are blaming the company that built and maintained the structure:
Because the government is so good at everything...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's much more fun to jump on the bandwagon then to heed reason and empirical observation.
There's a recent case in Spain where some rapists got out of jail after a few months because their lawyers are appealing the verdict and it would just be too cruel to keep convicted rapists in jail while the appeal drags on.
Were they granted bail going into the trial? If so, it seems reasonable to me that if the defendant was eligible for pre-trial bail then that bail should be extended for an appeal. Reduces the chance that someone innocent spends time behind bars. Of course on the other hand they also miss out on time served if they are guilty.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Step-dad got 10 years. Mom got about 12. Pedophile dude got about 10. And Germany says these sentences are "really long".
Considering that a human being lives about 80 years, yes, that is really long.
I'm sure about halfway through, at most, the legal system will start to feel sorry for them and they'll start getting weekend releases and so on.
And what is wrong with that? Revenge very much?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The final checkers would be threatened or bribed.
Please read the original post: "the people who did nothing once they found out". Those are the ones who failed. Not the people warning about the issues with that bridge, but the people ignoring those warnings.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Just a wild guess: you think that the US style federal prison, with gang rape, extortion, and senseless violence is just what the doctor ordered?
... or reduce the speed"
I'm having trouble figuring out how a reduce speed would reduce the load on a bridge. Anybody have an idea how that works?
This bullshit again? They were prosecuted for saying there was no risk and that people should go back home.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
This is what an earlier poster was referring to with the observation that "the construction companies made some 'equivalent substitutions'". These sorts of shenanigans are SOP in Italian civil works projects, you just get used to it after awhile.
Sure. In the meantime, let's just dismantle the EU which takes away Italy's own money, and leave it to the Italians. Then, and only then, if they won't use it to maintain their infrastructure, they'll be the ones to blame.
Really? I thought Italy was the Italy of Europe.
The universe is entropic (tending toward higher entropy - lower organization)
Stuff breaks down.
You don't need to plan to have things fail. They will fail by default.
All you need is insufficient planning, budget, and execution of how to make them last unexpectedly long.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?