Florida International University Bridge Collapses, Cars Underneath

miami.cbslocal.com ^ | 03/15/2018 | Staff

[Red Badger]

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — Florida International University’s massive new pedestrian bridge collapsed Thursday afternoon in West Miami-Dade.

The bridge, located at 109th Ave and 8th Street, collapsed on a number of cars.

There are reports of numerous people injured in the collapse. At least one person was taken as a trauma alert to the hospital, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

The 950-ton bridge went up on Saturday. It was then lowered into its final position, just west of 109th Avenue that day.

The main span was built next to Southwest 8th Street.

[JoeRed]

“This FIU bridge was designed as a cable-stayed bridge.”

Thanks, I learned something new today! Would the Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge in San Diego be considered a suspension bridge?

[steve86]

Hey, you’re in WA, too. If you don’t mind, what kind of concrete mix should I specify for my driveway replacement here in Tri-Cities area. Ordinary requirements, nothing special. I see recent jobs in the neighborhood cure to a “bright white”, which I don’t like because it seems like it would stain so easily. Thanks. Current driveway lasted almost 60 years but is cracking and with bad deterioration in some areas.

[cyn]

Thanks for link. Halfway down: // The proposed MCM-FIGG bridge design includes a central support tower rising 108 feet above the road that will make the structure a landmark and a gateway for western Miami-Dade County. // So what (I wonder) happened to a center support? It’s not here: https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/video/timelapse-shows-construction-of-fiu-bridge-that-later-collapsed/vp-BBKgQkW

I found: https://facilities.fiu.edu/projects/BT_904/FIU-Pedestrian-Bridge-Design-Criteria-2015-05-06_REV.pdf

[roadcat]

Point of failure, minimal support.

That pillar wouldn't be allowed here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, I think they're additionally reinforced with a steel cladding tube around the concrete with embedded rebar and cabling, to resist earthquake stresses. Probably few earthquakes in Florida, hence the substandard pillars there.

[steve86]

There might have been quite a bit of tension on the stress test cables in addition to something being dropped from the crane.

[steve86]

60 50

[jetson]

Has Hillary walked across that bridge lately?

[lastchance]

Umm, 2013- grant awarded. I wonder what eased the way?

[TomGuy]

ABC10 News:

A hundred rescue technicians are onsite.

Still search-and-rescue mission.

Bringing in additional large equipment.

Trying to maintain integrity of existing parts to prevent further parts from collapsing.

[TomGuy]

One local newsie said they were doing a scheduled stress test on a portion of the bridge when the collapse started.

[Enchante]

Find out if anyone involved was affected by the crazy SJW movement to free engineering and construction from "rigor" (academic and scientific rigor ..... just white male masculinist nonsense, you know).

From Purdue's Dean of Engineering Education:

“One of rigor’s purposes is, to put it bluntly, a thinly veiled assertion of white male (hetero)sexuality,” she writes, explaining that rigor “has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations—and links to masculinity in particular—are undeniable.” Hence, Riley remarks that “My visceral reaction in many conversations where I have seen rigor asserted has been to tell parties involved (regardless of gender) to whip them out and measure them already.”

Riley also argues that academic rigor can be used to exclude women and minorities, saying, “Rigor may be a defining tool, revealing how structural forces of power and privilege operate to exclude men of color and women, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, first-generation and low-income students, and non-traditionally aged students.”

She claims that rigor can “reinforce gender, race, and class hierarchies in engineering, and maintain invisibility of queer, disabled, low-income, and other marginalized engineering students,” adding that “decades of ethnographic research document a climate of microaggressions and cultures of whiteness and masculinity in engineering.”

She evens contends that “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonizing,” asserting that in the field of engineering, there is an “inherent masculinist, white, and global North bias...all under a guise of neutrality.”

[Alberta's Child]

That’s a bizarre design, but I would consider it a pedestrian bridge because the bridge is supported from the two main cables, not tied directly to the tower.

[onemiddleamerican]

Hey boss. Trust you’re doing well up there in the great white north?

[ratzoe]

Engineering failure? Probably caused by cost-cutting concerns with substandard materials, rushed construction and sloppy analysis of load and bearing inputs.

I agree with your first 2 reason, but the last would be an engineering failure.

[Alberta's Child]

STEM education has surely gotten dumbed down over the years, but I have seen no evidence that this has extended to the licensing exams for professional engineers. That’s usually where the wheat is separated from the chaff.

[OldMissileer]

Don’t see any sign of that central pillar or the suspension lines in the “after” photo. Wouldn’t those be kind of important?

I just arrived at this thread and have not read all 450+ replies but I have looked around the Internet and the bridge was not complete. The main portion was put into place about five days ago and the actual suspension tower and cabling was not to be installed until much later.

The bridge was not supposed to open for months. Obviously the engineers did not calculate the loads applied without the suspension system.

[Alberta's Child]

There wasn't supposed to be a "center support tower." The tower was actually on one side of the road, not in the middle of the span. See the graphic below. The bridge was supposed to have two spans -- the main span over the roadway and the shorter span over the creek or canal.

The section that collapsed was the one that ran between the tower on the left and the other abutment on the opposite side of the road.

Even then, the tower on the left side of this image and the cables that were supposed to support this bridge section from one end simply weren't in place when this thing collapsed.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Wondering if the massive shoring was in place during the collapse

The orange/hydraulic supports were wheeled, motorized units used to lift, support, and position the span as it was fastened to the supports. They are in the roadway, and had to be removed, unfortunately, for traffic to flow. In other words, the span was only supported at its ends when it failed.

That's asking a lot of a span that is designed to be supported from above by cables. And, they expected it to stay that way for a while, because the center pylon that the cables would be hung from wasn't even built. Major screw up. Even if there was something to the idea of building on the ground and moving into place, the hanging cables should have been ready to attach. I wonder if the bridge span was designed under different assumptions, like it would be supported in the middle as it was put in place and the suspension cables were attached?

[cyn]

Thanks for answer, was trying to figure where “center” fit in. Some of the finer details incl the portion going over the canal were in https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/video/timelapse-shows-construction-of-fiu-bridge-that-later-collapsed/vp-BBKgQkW

[Freee-dame]

Dean of Entineering Education ... What does Purdue’s Dean of Engineering say?