Posted on 03/18/2018 6:12:54 PM PDT by reaganaut1
The all-women engineering team that designed the ill-fated pedestrian foot bridge at Miami’s Florida International University were highly touted for their advances in a field that is typically dominated by men.
But critics are pointing the finger of blame at the female engineers for design flaws that may have brought the bridge down.
Investigators are still on the scene of last week’s bridge collapse that killed 6 people and injured 9 on the FIU campus in Southwest Miami.
The investigation is focusing on the work done by a team of all-women engineers who were employed by one of the construction firms that designed and built the bridge.
Munilla Construction Management (MCM), the South Miami-based firm that designed the FIU foot bridge, has been sued multiple times for unsafe practices in the past.
In early March MCM was sued by a construction worker who was severely injured when MCM’s “makeshift bridge” at Miami’s International Airport collapsed.
MCM is a Cuban-American, family-owned Miami company founded in 1983 that employs more than 1,000 people in several states. The company is a federal military contractor for the U.S. Army and Navy.
MCM was awarded the $14.2 million minority contract to design and build the cable-stayed bridge. The company is well-connected in Miami politics and it promotes inclusion and diversity in the workforce.
(Excerpt) Read more at sandrarose.com ...
But the cables and the center column had not been installed before the 950 ton, 174-foot bridge was moved into place over 8th street on Saturday.
WTF were they thinking?
Good point Fred, but only one PE’s stamp is going to be on those drawings and that’s going to be somebody at FIGG, not MCM as claimed by the “journalist” who wrote the article.
Planning erection sequencing and related is MCM’s responsibility, but I’d bet with this being a JV, those plans were formally routed back through FIGG’s engineer of record.
Designed wrong or built wrong - always the classic question. With this one, add the possibility of damage in transit.
Employees at MCM | Munilla Construction Management
Melanie Rowan, P.E.
Senior Project Manager
Nelson Gomez Jr
Project Engineer
Maira Suarez
Alex Suarez
Senior Project Manager
Nelson Nunez
Fleet Manager
https://www.myfloridalicense.com/wl11.asp?mode=3&search=Name&SID=&brd=&typ=
I just did a search for Melanie Rowan’s license on the Florida state website. Her name does not appear on the Florida PE roster. Not good.
What's the good word, HangnJudge?
“promotes inclusion and diversity in the workforce”
We must be inclusive and diverse. The consequences be damned.
Looked like an awful lot of concrete for a pedestrian bridge, too. Pretty thick. Come to think of it, decking with non-tensioned rebar might have been best for forms, and a thinner slab.
Also, come to think of it, there was no good reason for that heavy slab on top. That should have been some kind of truss bridge sheeted with lighter materials.
Ping
Yes, I understand structural drawings quite well.
What part of “It was a politically-funded project, built by political donors, designed by a (sexist-diversified) politically-correct “team”, constructed for a politically-connected donor company, for a politically connected congressional district. It fell down, people got killed.” do you not understand?
Well put. The arm chair quarterbacking is epic in this event.
I believe within reason and ability anything can be accomplished with the RIGHT people as per skill set. I further say doing anything in the name of diversity and affirmative action has never had great outcomes in anything. That is just reality.
...What’s the good word, HangnJudge
TOO HELL WITH GEORGIA!
I don’t think it’s a matter of people thinking that gender played a role in possibly faulty engineering, rather that placing gender above competence may have. If you hire based on lady parts instead of engineering smarts, then you might have a problem. And with an all female engineering team, it’s very likely that was the case.
On the other hand, the blame for the disaster may fall on the installation crew, in which case the lady geeks might be off the hook.
**Played Trombone too, very well**
Is that what they call it now?
A few deaths is a small price to pay for diversity.
And you've examined the drawings for this project? You might note what the word 'and' denotes in my question. Did the bridge fall down because of loads or something else?
Concrete (especially thin, long, pre-cast/post-tensioned concrete like this deck) is a poor choice for the complex stresses (tension, compression, and moment-resisting at each corner) in a beam truss like this one.
The upper concrete was apparently intended as a sunshade, it has many fewer Post-tensions bars/cables in it than the lower beam.
Apparently cracks were found in the bridge the first days after it was lifted in place, there were people on top trying to adjust/re-tension the cables when it collapsed. But the cars underneath were permitted to drive under anyway - the main intention of the design was “appearance” (the white reflective concrete was a main selling point of the proposal) and “style” and (Obama’s favorite) “ecological minimized impact” - which is why concrete was chosen over “unimaginative” “plain steel” .
Eng-Tips.com has examined the drawings and construction planning documents that have been released.
Yes. No part of this construction sequence, the explanations to date, the re-tensioning sequence, the traffic below, the installation sequence, and the missing bridge parts (tower, mid-bridge temporary support, cable stays, and selection of material for the trusses) make sense to any professional observer based on the collective experience of the engineers reviewing it.
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