×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

(not major news) Interesting field cheat

(not major news) Interesting field cheat

(not major news) Interesting field cheat

(OP)
Dunno how widely this is circulating, but someone just sent me some photographs of a bridge built some decades ago in which they just discovered recently that some of the holes in the bolted splice hadn't lined up during erection--so the contractor cut the bolts and used some small strips of metal to wedge the head side in one hole and the nut side in the other, so that it *looked* like the fasteners were installed!

Wow.

Let's hear it for factors of safety...

Hg

RE: (not major news) Interesting field cheat

Cool!  Could you provide a link to those photos?

RE: (not major news) Interesting field cheat

(OP)
There aren't any cool edge-on photos showing the offset in the splice, just of the two pieces once removed, but they aren't really mine to distribute.  The splices looked completely normal till someone knocked one out by accident during a retrofit.

Reminds me of that list of illustrations I've seen circulating by xerox, with all kinds of imaginary bolts to fit all kinds of errors, including an offset bolt shank to fit offset holes.  Is that cartoon online anywhere?

Hg

RE: (not major news) Interesting field cheat

A few years ago I shotblasted a bridge supporting a walkway between a  concrete chimney  and  the treatment plant.
 The bridge also supported an eight foot dia flue gas duct.  
We found  the bridge was anchored to the concrete by numerous very large bolts, many of which were simply bolt heads  resin bonded to the steelwork to appear like they were full depth  resin anchor bolts.  
Possibly this practice is more widespread than imagined  !!!

Cheers D W.  

RE: (not major news) Interesting field cheat

(OP)
I hadn't heard of this before with main member splices (and that case didn't happen in my state, if anyone was wondering), but it does seem to be epidemic with anchor bolts.  Our inspectors have numerous anecdotes of threaded rod extending only a couple inches into the bridge pier.  Sometimes because the holes didn't align and so they cut off the bolts and put them in an inch or two over, sometimes because they didn't put them in to begin with and so they grouted in stubs cosmetically.  They find them when someone happens to grab hold of an anchor bolt (with a comealong or even a bare hand) and it just comes off.  Real cute.

Another one along those lines--not enough threaded rod extension to get the nut on, so they welded the nut to the end of the rod and then filled up the hole with weld metal.

And to think--these are just the cases that were caught and remedied!

Hg

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources