A crane setting girders for a bridge in New Zealand toppled over as the temporary embankment it was sitting on gave way. [Source: The Landslide Blog. Image: Vertical.net]
New Zealand Crane Topples In Apparent Bearing Capacity Failure
Failures
Cologne Tunnel Contractor’s and Engineers’ Offices Raided
According to a Reuters article, Cologne State Prosecutors raided the offices of various contractors, engineers, and even the Cologne Public Transport company to collect evidence in an investigation into the cause of the collapse of […]
Rockman's Ramblings
Personal Reflections on I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis
On January 15, the National Transportation Safety Board released a safety recommendation letter report to the FHWA related to the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis Minnesota that claimed the lives of 13 people and injured 145. The safety recommendations are based on the findings of an interim report from the FHWA Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center that some gusset plates, components of the steel trusses, were undersized (not thick enough). This deficiency was confirmed to be a flaw in the design and not construction-related based on review of the original drawings from the 1960s and inspection of the wreckage. Whether this was a calculation error or a drafting error will perhaps never be known as only portions of the original design calculations were located. But the point is that it was never caught by any reviewers.
When this event first happened back on August 1, I remember being very shaken up by it. After my initial sadness for the victims of the accident, my first thought as a geotechnical engineer was: “were the foundations at fault.†As more information came out, it quickly became evident that the failure did not have anything to do with the foundations but that it was related to the superstructure of the bridge. But this still was something that profoundly affected me. (Continues…)
Failures
Crane topples over embankment after retaining wall fails
According to Silicon Valley’s MercuryNews.com, a [very lucky] worker suffered minor injuries when the crane he was opperating toppled down an embankment. The accident apparently occured on a CALTRANS project as the crane was lifting a 10,000-lb pile when a "wood retaining wall" gave way. It sounds like they were constructing a soldier pile lagging wall with steel h-pile soldiers and wood lagging. (Photo by Donna Jones/Sentinel)