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An "instant" pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Miami collapsed on March 15, killing a number of motorists. A 174-foot, 950-ton span of the bridge was installed on Saturday, March 10 over a busy portion of Tamiami Trail called Southwest Eighth Street. The incomplete bridge suddenly collapsed on Thursday:
The bridge gave way suddenly while the traffic light for motorists on Tamiami Trail was red, so that the concrete span fell on top of a row of stopped vehicles. A woman stopped at the light who was heading westbound said the structure fell without warning. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said it was immediately clear to her that several people were dead.
[...] The bridge crashed across six lanes of heavily traveled Tamiami Trail, crushing a still undetermined number of cars and killing a still unclear number of people. Police on the scene said at least six people could be dead.
From an earlier article:
The rapid span installation was the result of months of preparation. The bridge's main 174-foot span was assembled by the side of the Trail while support towers were built at either end. The 950-ton span was then picked up, moved and lowered into place by special gantry cranes at the intersection of Southwest 109th Avenue in an operation that lasted several hours Saturday morning.
[...] The innovative installation method significantly reduced risks to workers, pedestrians and motorists and minimized traffic disruptions, FIU said. The architecturally distinctive, cable-supported bridge is the product of a collaboration between MCM Construction and FIGG Bridge Design, the firm responsible for the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay.
[more...]
The news stories about the Miami Bridge follow the common pattern of containing almost no technical information and a massive focus on the horror. The comments section to the news articles are almost equally horrific. So I started looking for civil engineering forums, ran across this one: http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=436595 and in one of the links in one of the comments, ran into a link to the proposal from MCM and FIGG: https://facilities.fiu.edu/projects/BT_904/MCM_FIGG_Proposal_for_FIU_Pedestrian_Bridge_9-30-2015.pdf It runs 173 pages and is a mixture of marketing and an explanation of the phases of construction. Very nice renderings
I have none of the requisite knowledge to comment on the collapse, but the reading is finally interesting. I'd be interested in other people's finds as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/florida-bridge-collapse-crack.html
Hours before the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University on Thursday, the engineering company for the bridge met with the construction manager and representatives from the university and the Florida Department of Transportation to discuss a crack on the structure, according to a statement from the university released early Saturday.
The engineering company, Figg Bridge Engineers, delivered a technical presentation on the crack, the statement said, and "concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge."
Six vehicles remain trapped under the bridge, with four of them very difficult to extract, Maurice Kemp, deputy mayor of Miami-Dade County, said.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 20 2018, @06:41AM (1 child)
This is to be expected as more and more things are constructed the way software is written.
Preventing bad engineering and bad design has always required a lot of pushback. That pushback has been lacking of late because people have come to expect technological failure. If Bill Gates can be credited with nothing else, he has above all made bad engineering acceptable. Yes, it started with his software, but that has been only the beginning. Experience acquired in one situation is always abstracted and applied in other situations. People learning to accept bad design and bad engineering in one area become tolerant of it in others. As generations pass with new people never having seen decent design or function or owner control on computers, Bill has trained people not to push back against failure in design and implementation, first with computers, later in general.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:41AM
In the middle ages, generations of architect/builders/masons created many large structures like cathedrals and castles. My understanding (from architecture school) is that the designer(s) had to stand under the big arches and domes when the construction scaffolding/shoring was removed. If your grandfather designed the structure, you (2-3 generations later) have to have a lot of confidence in his work to be in the same profession.
Time to reinstate these rules -- the owners of architect/engineering firms should have some skin in the game.