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To: skeptoid; sionnsar
Per sq foot, people-wedged-against-people weigh more than the usual maximum traffic load of truck-behind-truck-behind-truck: the removal of platform weight (the concrete being scraped up and trucked off as construction/repaving continued removed even more weight.

So weight (by itself) wasn’t a cause, but removing the concrete from the surface seems to have reduced platform stability. The platform became less rigid as the concrete deck got thinner, and so the platform shifted (or moved the pins off their support at one end of one platform.

Then, as soon as one end of one plate was free (or had wiggled too far - the construction crew said the entire deck was getting more and more mobile as the concrete got thinner) the other concrete decks were able to fall. Then, the whole structure came down because it was not locked in place at both ends of every deck section.

My opinion? The connections (of one deck platform) must have failed first, as you can tell because the individual decks and beams came down in complete pieces.

41 posted on 08/04/2007 3:09:39 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

I was waiting for you to ping in.


43 posted on 08/04/2007 3:13:07 PM PDT by patton (Get the H$LL off of my ROOF!)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE
Very likely.

Have you seen the surveillance video of the collapse?

44 posted on 08/04/2007 3:18:31 PM PDT by skeptoid (AA, UE, MBS (with clusters))
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