(not major news) Interesting field cheat

[HgTX]

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

 

[crossframe]

Cool! Could you provide a link to those photos?

 

[HgTX]

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

 

[corrosionman]

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.

 

[HgTX]

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