August 10, 2007

• http://riverbridgecollapse.com

  http://riverbridgecollapse.com might take a few hours. I recent story was where they apparently ran the bridge design through a modern CAD program and found some structural weaknesses in the design. I’m still sticking with my “hinge pin galling” as either “win” “place” or “show” to use the horse-race metaphor. If the design was defective “hinge galling” can still play a roll. If the “hinges” were sticking that would compress and expand the arch. That causes metal fatigue.
  
  Something no one has mentioned in the New York City Citycorp Building. This has the “lean to” roof. An architectural student figured out that it had a serious structural flaw. If a hurricane hit New York the building could topple over. Such a hurricane hits NYC every fifteen years. They lucked out and managed to structurally reinforce the building. I’ll break the story on the blog and then tell some media people.
  
  Lot’s of angles to the bridge collapse. I recall during the 1960′s the freeway between the Twin Cities and Duluth was dubbed “the road to nowhere”. Freeway teaser then back to Highway 61 than more freeway. I think that in this was a pattern where the public was getting frustrated with the “difficult” sections of interstate system not being completed. This was in addition to the cost of the Vietnam war and the “Great Society” programs. I wonder if they tried to overrely on technology to build bridges on the cheap.
  
  Anyway, lots of stuff from the “cobwebs of my brain” to explore. I probably have some advantage here here from my SLA stuff, since that involved a lot of ancient material I also didn’t consider important at the time. This should be interesting and I feel I can contribute here.

  • 5:18 am
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