Posted on 06/22/2014 12:55:50 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
The welding code and construction contract for the suspension-span roadway of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge each contain a universal rule: “No cracks.”
That rule applies to any new steel bridge and is particularly important for a “fracture-critical” bridge such as the new span, which opened last fall. Fracture-critical bridges can break, because some of their parts lack redundancy or backup. If a weld crack grows larger, causing such a part to fail, all or part of the roadway could collapse.
In 2008, the no-cracks rule put the California Department of Transportation in a worrisome bind. The Chinese firm hired to build the roadway routinely produced cracked welds that proved difficult to fix. Facing rising costs and increasing delays on a $6.5 billion bridge that was already years behind schedule and billions over budget, Caltrans sought advice about its options from a highly regarded expert in how metal fractures. He said some cracks can remain without compromising safety.
Caltrans then changed its contract and decided to put aside the welding code. Its fracture-critical bridge could now have cracks.
Weld cracks are the latest in the litany of errors and construction problems regarding the new span that have steadily emerged in recent years. Suspect foundation concrete, rusted tendons in the skyway that connects the suspension span to Oakland, broken anchor rods, and corrosion on the main cable are among the issues uncovered by The Sacramento Bee and others.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Now let's see what the "bullet train" project will be like.
Depends on whether they imperil certain politicians, I suppose.
Crack-pot politicians found away around the crack rule. But I’ve got this feeling it will bite them on the a$$.
Meaning: "We have to spend all this money quickly to build a new, unsafe span before a major earthquake."
Imagine what your car would look like over time if there were tiny cracks in the spotwelds that hold the small parts sub-assemblies to the main body panels.......LOL!
So costs do trump engineering?
Say it isn't so!
No convince me it's not a Chinese company closely, intimately, incestuously associated with Diane Feinstein's hubby...
“Fracture-critical bridges can break, because some of their parts lack redundancy or backup.”
Isn’t that called “bad architecture”?
Often they do, in my experience.
But that's no where near as dangerous as when politics trumps engineering...
So I guess structural welding is another one of those “unskilled” jobs we shouldn’t pay Americans to do. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.
Diane Feinstein, the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees?
Shirley you jest.
And wait till you see what happens when politics trumps medical care.
I’m not jesting, and stop calling me Surely...
That’s called democrat governance.
Already have. As a military dependent, I was raise under socialized medicine right here in the good ol’ USofA...
There are always key elements that must not fail. Those elements have to be engineered and manufactured to have the margins necessary cover all the known possibilities. It is true for a building, a car and an airplane.
The engineers that designed the bridge are the ones who should approve or disapprove the welding. Since the welds are cracked from the start - I would think that’s a big red flag...
Engineering is always a compromise between cost and function. Reliability falls under function...
Its a balance, without money the engineers wouldn’t have anything to build.
Wonder why?
“”And wait till you see what happens when politics trumps medical care.””
They will do the same thing with health-care, import lesser quality doctors cause the will work for cheap, just like these chinese welders.
I just dealt with hospital staff at a local hospital, and fully 30% of the doctors (not just staff) use english as a second language. To say they were barely competent in their native language is being generous.
Our next generation is so screwed.
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