"There have been numerous bridge collapses when in routine inspections were either omitted, failed to identify issues or issues found in inspections were not addressed."
The 'gusset' panel failure on the Minneapolis Interstate bridge. Decades of data showing a steady corrosion rate [due to pidgeon poop?] and areas where the thickness was HALF GONE. Started out at 3/4", last measurement [that MN DOT admits to] had areas at 3/8". Further, the original design of this box-girder truss bridge was done 'by hand' just prior to computers for engineers and scientific calculaters. The Minnesota DOT couldn't be bothered to recheck this fracture critical area of their bridge when truss software became widely available. I believe the computer calc's came out to 1-1/8" required thickness, vs. the hand-calc'd 3/4". But 3/4" would have held the load, with a reduced safety factor.
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Steel bridges in general are a MAJOR sore spot for me. The morons at DOT's all want to make everything a major project, including chipping off peeling paint and doing spot-touchups of those chipped places. When you force a simple 3-man job - chipper/painter in bosun's chair, helper, boss - to become a $200K contract, nobody can figure how to fix the rusty spots. The navy's of the world have proven that with regular chipping & painting, steel structures last 'forever' in corrosive environments. And some navys have also proven that 'benign neglect' of paint will cause major, relentless, and rapid failures of those steel structures. Concrete is a lousy bridge material, but if you're too stupid/lazy/'politically adept' to fix the paint, concrete beats steel.
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