Overview of Progressive Collapse of Bridges

To fix the failing infrastructure problem, one must identify why the structures, in this case bridges, are failing in the first place. Civil engineers have identified that the problem is not cause by one singular factor, but a multitude of factors including age, materials, environment, faulty design, and lack of maintenance. Environmental factors are the biggest concern engineers run into because it is

Compression is the force pressing a material and compacting it and acts on the towers of a suspension bridge, this force is created from the weight of the towers and the load on the bridge. Compression forces will also act on the surface of the bridge deck as when a load is applied it will have some flexibility and bend, it will then travel up the cables, ropes or chains to transfer the compression forces to the towers. The towers then dissipate the compression directly into the earth. (Bagga 2014).

deliberately focus on developing our skills, then the results will come if we put in the time. It is really at its core, just producing a volume of work in order for us to get the failures out of the way on to extricating the gems.

The I-35W Mississippi river bridge also known as Bridge 9340 officially was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge which carried the Interstate 35W across the Mississippi river connected the downtown east and Marcy-Holmes. Its construction began in the year 1964, was finally opened in 1967. It connected the northeast of Metrodome on its south end and the University of Minnesota on the North end. The bridge was the boundary of “Mississippi Mile” downtown riverfront parkland. The north foundation of the bridge was near the hydroelectric plant built in 1988. The south abutment was in an area polluted by the coal gas processing plant. There weren’t any mentions of this in the failure investigations. The bridge was a continuous truss bridge that had a total span of 1,907 ft. It was an 8-lane bridge having a width of 113.3ft. and was 115 ft. high. It was designed by Sverdrup & Parcel to 1961 AASHO (American Association Of State Highway Officials) standard specifications. The construction contract worth more than US $5.2 million at the time, went to Hurcon Inc. and Industrial Construction Company, which built the steel trusses and deck. The piers were not built in the navigation channel instead the center span of the bridge consisted of a single 456- foot steel truss over a 390-foot channel being the longest span of the bridge.

Amec Foster Wheeler is a publicly traded company providing various services in markets such as Oil & Gas, Mining, Environment & Infrastructure and Clean Energy. The purpose of this report is to investigate and analyze stratigraphic units, geotechnical properties, identify the presence of weak clay layers in the Water Management Pond (WMP) site and how failures such as cracking can occur in embankment dams.

*The first shot opens up to a Summer morning in London, United Kingdom.Then, two mens voices are then heard Narrating as the screen fades the black* "What did you see, Sam?" *A film shot then showed a giant cargo cage covered by a large velvet cloth being transported off by heavy loaded machinery onto the Docks of London's river* "I Don't know. But whatever it was, I never want to see it again" *Out in an unknown part of the ocean, a Volcanic island is seen having an explosive eruption as a nearby boat's crew takes cover behind some crates to avoid as much of the shockwave of the explosion as possible.* *The Next scene showed massive saurian like creature caged up with a muzzle as the fins on it's head moved a bit as it whimpered* "Captain, the Creature

What are the old covered bridges of Madison County? Way back in Madison County, down back roads there lies an old piece of history, there lies the old covered bridges. An aroma of longstanding wood hangs in the air, the paint is blemishing, and the floorboards are groaning, but the timeworn bridges still stand. In the 19th century, many covered bridges were assembled. They were created to cover and shelter the roadway, and it was cheaper to replenish the boards of the roof and walls, then the compact beams of the bridge. Six covered bridges linger in Madison County, Iowa. These bridges received fame from Clint Eastwood’s movie, which utilized one of the bridges. These old covered bridges are an essential

Professor Farquharson made an important observation- the bridge model underwent a “twisting motion” when faced with certain extreme conditions. From his model, he could conclude that in the event that the actual bridge

Under these circumstances, the center span of the bridge collapsed and fell into the Mississippi River. All four gusset plates at the U10 nodes fractured since they were inadequate in strength for the demand being exerted on to them. When these first gusset plates fractured, other gusset plates started to fracture and break too because the design of the bridge was non-load-path-redundant. In other words, if one piece, such as the U10 gusset plate, failed, then the whole bridge would fail too.

Earth is a life giving planet. It is also true that it’s never at rest. It is in a daily course of revolution and rotation, making us experience not only night and day, but also seasons. This planet goes through many changes that brings wonders, but also catastrophes. These forces of nature leave damages and deaths all over the world. One of these cataclysm is earthquakes. What exactly is an earthquake? An earthquake is the ground shaking caused by the sudden movement of one block or rock slipping past another along the faults (Lutgens, Tarbuck). There is a process that causes an earthquake to happen. First it involves the heating, followed by

Hecox (2011) says that the arch structure of the Tillman Bridge makes the canyon walls hold the weight of both vehicles and the bridge itself. In addition, the arch structure allows a better vision of the canyon for the drivers, which was a request of the population to the engineers of the project. In the other hand, according to Jones (2015), the truss structure of the new St. Anthony Bridge also was requested by the population because they wanted to keep a truss bridge in that place. The author also affirms that the St. Anthony Bridge is a truss, but the project team proposed adding a posttensioned concrete bottom chord to the steel truss in order to reinforce it. The project team made this choice because one bridge in Minnesota has collapsed in 2007, and the engineers wanted to lessen the fracture-critical issues to avoid a new catastrophe. In addition, this posttensioning approach wiil make the structure redundant for both resiliency and long-term durability. In conclusion, both bridge's structures were right chosen in order to provide safety and beauty in both

In 1989, an earthquake caused the top deck of the bridge to collapse. This has raised concern in recent years in the case of a large scale earthquake. During an inspection in September of 2009, a 1.5 inch crack was found in a structural truss called an eyebar. The system of the truss is meant to distribute report will describe the tensile load from the weight of the bridge over 4 eyebars. One of them being broken, this same load was now distributed between only 3 eyebars. Because these eyebars were not designed to carry extra load, it became crucially important to repair the eyebar as soon as possible. However, because the bridge is so old, its mechanisms were more complex than what would be designed now in the current day. The engineering company C.C. Myers was contracted to do the repair. C.C Myers decided to repair the eyebar by welding a crossbar to the saddles which had been placed on each end of the broken eyebar (Alfrey, 2010). Four tie rods were then bolted to distribute the tensile load (Reid, 2010). This repair was completed in only 70 hours (Carlsen,

You’re on your way home from work and you are stuck on a bridge in rush hour traffic. All of a sudden the bridge collapses and you along with hundreds of other people are severely injured. This is what it was like for the people involved in the Minnesota bridge collapse, one of the deadliest bridge collapses in history.

When the bridge was tested, at 26 pounds of pressure, it began to buckle. The top support near the middle of the bridge on one side caved in, and as the weight increased, more of the top supports collapsed. At 47.3 pounds of pressure, the bridge snapped in half. By the end of the testing, the bridge had lost all of it’s top supports, two sections of diagonal supports on either side, and a small portion of the roadway.

Because of advancements in today’s technology in construction field, many types of bridges are being constructed depending on the requirement and their suitability for the situations.