24 Years, And They STILL Can't Get It Right...

[Gob]

Wind breaker?

[Guinevere]

Fine CP, I'll make it a month....

ETA:

And I'll throw in wearing a Dallas Cowboys wind breaker for a week...

New England Patriots gear would be more appropriate. It goes better with the bumper sticker.

Although frankly, I think you should be sporting this one:

[Gob]

and drive one of these...

[Jarlaxle]

The power of the comma. Is it...

"MAN LOVE RULES!" or...
"MAN, LOVE RULES!"

[dales]

We are indeed the laughingstock of civil engineers the world over.

Engineers around the world anxiously awaiting results of Bay Bridge bolt failure analysis
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Contra Costa Timescontracostatimes.com
Posted: 05/02/2013 05:32:18 PM PDT
May 3, 2013 1:49 PM GMTUpdated: 05/03/2013 06:49:18 AM PDT


OAKLAND -- How California handles the catastrophic failure of giant steel rods on the nearly finished Bay Bridge will help other states and countries avoid a similar and possibly fatal mistake, say international engineering association leaders.

"Engineers working in this area from throughout the world are waiting with bated breath to hear the outcome of the forensic and failure analysis," said Kevin Garrity, engineer and the immediate past president of NACE International, the Corrosion Society. "My hope is that once everyone gets to the bottom of the major issues, the lessons learned will make a significant contribution to a more global understanding of the problems that can occur with high-strength steel.

Caltrans and American Bridge Fluor Joint Venture, the suspension span contractor, have said they'll soon release findings into why a third of 96 bolts -- 3 inches in diameter and 17 to 24 feet long -- snapped after workers tightened them in early March.

The threaded anchor rods vertically connect three critical pieces of the bridge at the pier just east of the main tower: bridge deck, shear keys or bearings, and columns. Shear keys help control side-to-side sway, and bearings counter seismic uplift.

The broken rods were manufactured in Ohio in 2008. An additional 192 anchor rods fabricated in 2010 by the same company and installed in two adjacent shear keys have not failed but are undergoing intense testing.

On Wednesday, Caltrans, the California Transportation Commission and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission -- three agencies the Legislature appointed in 2005 as co-managers on the $6.4 billion replacement eastern span, will also provide:


Cost, type and timeline for the repair, which will be either a steel collar or saddle placed around the shear keys where the bolts broke.


Decision about whether the rods made in 2010 that have not failed should be replaced.


Whether or not the span will open on Sept. 3 as planned.

It's been 23 years since the magnitude-7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake struck and sheared pins on the Bay Bridge's cantilever span. A large section of the upper deck fell onto the lower lanes, and one motorist died.

[NO IT DID NOT! IT WAS A SMALL SECTION OF ROADWAY, YOU DUMB ASS!]

Dithering over design, alignment, bike lanes and who would pay for the massive cost overruns took years. Construction finally started in 2002, and like every mega public works project, it has experienced problems big and small. Now, just months before the scheduled opening, the specter of snapped bolts has weakened public confidence in the new span's much-touted ability to withstand a big temblor.

Whether or not the Bay Area celebrates the opening of the world's largest single-tower, self-anchored suspension span on Labor Day will hinge on what the bridge team's investigators say about how fragile rods ended up on the new span.

They know the rods became brittle through a well-known chemical reaction, where hydrogen atoms invade the spaces between the steel's crystalline structure and weaken it. But the team has yet to state publicly whether the hydrogen contamination occurred during fabrication or while the rods sat in their casings for nearly five years in pools of water, or both.

Based on what metallurgy experts from around the country have suggested, the most likely culprits are excessive hardness and galvanizing: The stronger the steel, the more susceptible it is to hydrogen intrusion, and galvanizing can trap hydrogen atoms beneath the zinc coating.

Out of 14 tensile strength tests Caltrans performed on rod samples in 2008 -- part of the same batch that broke -- two were stronger than what American Institute of Steel Construction chief structural engineer Charlie Carter called the "critical zone." Another five were within 2½ percent of levels considered at high risk for hydrogen-induced brittleness.

ASTM International, an industry standards organization, has warned for decades against galvanizing fasteners made out of the same material and grade of steel used for the 288 anchor rods installed in the new bridge. The same galvanized steel -- called A354 BD -- was also used for 932 other pieces on the bridge. The bridge team has said it is inspecting all the galvanized high-strength steel used on the span.

"Research conducted on bolts of similar material and manufacture indicates that hydrogen-stress cracking or stress cracking corrosion may occur on hot-dip galvanized Grade BD bolts," according to ASTM.

Portland Bolt and Manufacturing in Oregon declined to submit a bid quote on the Bay Bridge bolts when Caltrans put out bid specifications in 2005, chiefly because of the galvanizing requirement, said company quality assurance director Dane McKinnon.

"We won't galvanize A354 BD bolts for any reason," said McKinnon, who is also a member of ASTM's fastener standards committee. "We've chosen to take ASTM's warning as more of an absolute."

Caltrans' bridge design manual prohibits galvanizing this type of steel, but engineers opted to do it anyway for reasons they haven't yet explained. Generally, galvanizing is a relatively cheap and long-lasting anti-corrosive treatment.

Agency representatives said in late April they took measures to reduce the hydrogen risk by requiring the galvanizer to clean the steel surface before through dry grit blasting rather than an acid bath.

Learning how Caltrans came to its decision to deviate from both its own policy and long-established industry guidelines is key for the global engineering community, said Carter, also chairman of the Bolt Council.

"This will be a good object lesson for all of us," Carter said. "If you knew about (hydrogen impacts) and forgot, this is reminder. If you didn't know, well, unfortunately, engineers learn a lot from experience."

FUGGIN' IDIOTS!

[Jarlaxle]

Fine CP, I'll make it a month....

ETA:

And I'll throw in wearing a Dallas Cowboys wind breaker for a week...

New England Patriots gear would be more appropriate. It goes better with the bumper sticker.

Although frankly, I think you should be sporting this one:

I need a "RUN, HILLARY, RUN!" bumper sticker.

Liz wants to put it on the brushguard of her Blazer. (That's a "Roo bar" for the Aussies here.)

[Lord Jim]

Well, here's the latest...

It looks less and less like I'm going to have slap that Warren sticker on my car, or wear Dallas Cowboy gear:

Bay Bridge rod troubles extend to base
Jaxon Van Derbeken
Updated 8:56 pm, Saturday, May 11, 2013

The base of the new Bay Bridge eastern span's signature tower is secured by more than 400 high-strength steel rods that were galvanized under conditions Caltrans barred as putting them at risk of cracking, The Chronicle has learned.

The tower is the dominant feature of the $6.4 billion eastern span, which is supposed to open over Labor Day weekend - a schedule that is now up in the air because of problems with how the tower rods and nearly 2,000 other steel fasteners were made.

The 525-foot-tall tower has been the central feature of the span since plans were drawn up in 1998. The landmark survived then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts in 2004 to scrap it due to cost and replace it with a concrete causeway. In recent weeks the scaffolding has gradually disappeared from around the tower, revealing the structure silhouetted on the Golden State Warriors' uniforms.

Not visible are the 424 threaded rods - 24 feet long and 3 and 4 inches in diameter - that are among those Caltrans has belatedly realized are vulnerable to being invaded by hydrogen that could cause them to become brittle and crack.

Caltrans can sample many of the 2,306 problematic steel rods on the span in an effort to determine whether they will hold up. However, it cannot easily inspect, remove or replace those that sit at the base of the tower because the mammoth structure was lowered onto them in pieces.

"We are aware of the issue," Caltrans spokesman Will Shuck said of the tower rods. "These are going to get added scrutiny. We're going to make 100 percent sure they are safe."

In an earthquake, the rods would perform a vital task - countering the swaying forces on the tower. Caltrans officials say the rods are not being subjected to a high stress load, which they say reduces the risk they could crack.

Some outside experts, however, said the way the tower rods were manufactured makes them vulnerable to minor cracking that could suddenly worsen in an earthquake.

Problems in long run

"The problem is going to be that, over a long time, you start to see some cracks," said Russell Kane, an expert on metal embrittlement and corrosion who owns a consulting firm in Texas. In an earthquake, he said, "you are going to have some of those pre-existing cracks that are going to grow like crazy."

"If you have cracks in them, all bets are off," Kane said. "The thing could be swaying in the wind very quickly."

Like the other problematic steel rods on the eastern span, the ones at the base of the tower were made to an industry standard known as A354 BD. That denotes that the steel is of high strength and is allowed to be galvanized - a process in which the rods are dipped in molten zinc, intended to keep them from rusting.

But federal and state highway officials have long warned against galvanizing such high-strength steel and using it on bridges because of the possibility it will fail.

Galvanizing risk

Galvanizing can seal in hydrogen, which can cause cracking. It can also make it easier for hydrogen to invade the steel through flaws in the coating, by way of an electro-chemical reaction.

Caltrans banned such rods from bridges in 2000 because of the chance the steel could become brittle during the galvanizing process. The agency made an exception, however, for the A354 BD galvanized rods on the new Bay Bridge - after instructing manufacturers to remove a step in the galvanization process in which the metal is pickled in hydrochloric acid before being dipped in zinc. They hoped that would minimize the risk of hydrogen invasion.

"Generic specifications are for a run-of-the-mill bridge," Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty explained, "and this bridge is not run-of-the-mill."

In avoiding the acid baths, Caltrans was following the advice of the American Society for Testing and Materials, an industry standards group that establishes specifications.

Failed rods

Already, however, it's clear that Caltrans' precaution was far from foolproof: In March, 32 of the rods on a seismic-stability structure on the new eastern span snapped when they were tightened, even though they had not been subjected to hydrochloric acid.

Experts have speculated the destructive hydrogen could have come from rainwater that filled the rods' holes after they were installed on the bridge, although a committee of experts that Caltrans convened reported last week that unspecified problems during galvanization were the "likely" source of the contamination.

The rods at the base of the tower, however, were subjected to the acid baths, according to the company that supplied them in 2006 and 2007. Caltrans had specified that the rods should not get the acid treatment, but somehow those instructions never made it to the galvanizer.

Caltrans says it learned about the mistake during an audit it launched last month into the bridge rods after it became clear there had been problems in the manufacturing.

Amy Worth, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the apparent failure of Caltrans' quality control was alarming.

"We're going to get to the bottom of it," said Worth, whose agency oversees Caltrans' work on the bridge. "We want to figure out what happened and then understand what the solution might be."
Big danger

Joseph Nicoletti, a veteran seismic engineer who until recently served on a Bay Bridge advisory panel for Caltrans, said the potentially at-risk rods serve a vital purpose - to check the shear forces in a quake.

If they failed, he said, the tower could move horizontally. "That's something you don't want," he said.

Nicoletti speculated that the pitfalls of using galvanized high-strength steel were not fully understood by the bridge's designers or Caltrans.

"When you are doing a state-of-the-art job, you are playing with the state of the art in metallurgy and everything else," he said. "I'm not surprised something like this came up. Unfortunately, it came up at a bad time, and at quite a cost."

Records show the 424 tower rods were made by Vulcan Threaded Products in Alabama, which received the order through the contractor that built the tower, Kiewit-FCI-Manson joint venture, via two intermediary companies.

Although the bid order that Caltrans issued in 2003 shows the rods were supposed to be specially galvanized and not subjected to a hydrochloric acid bath, a Vulcan executive said those instructions never made it to the company.

"We manufactured a quality product. We manufactured to the specifications that they asked for," said Alan Logan, operations manager for Vulcan. "It appears that they full-court-pressed us to get this material to them."

Vulcan sent the rods to be galvanized by a Tennessee company, which pickled them in hydrochloric acid before dipping them in molten zinc.
No guarantees

Logan said there was no guarantee the rods at the base of the tower won't crack.

"The problem is that nobody can say that," he said. "You really don't know."

Caltrans officials say they are trying to assess the vulnerability of the tower's rods, but pointed out that they have already been inspected and have been performing satisfactorily. "We're just not ready to make a decision about them or any of the other rods until we have completed the metallurgical analysis that is under way," said Caltrans spokesman Shuck.

"If they need further study they're going to get it, because we're absolutely going to deliver a safe bridge."

But vouching for the rods will not be easy - removing one to be tested would be all but impossible. They are embedded in concrete that rests atop pilings driven deep into bedrock.

One approach would be to sample their characteristics and try to assess which among them might be the most vulnerable to cracking. "You ought to be able to point to the ones that will be most at risk, and those are the ones you would have to find a way to reinforce," corrosion expert Kane said.

The executive director of the transportation commission, Steve Heminger, was not aware of any unusual quality control issues with the rods from Vulcan.

Governor optimistic

"You have to examine what are the mechanical properties of those" rods, Heminger said. "Based on my own experience on this bridge, Caltrans quality control has been pretty rigorous," he said, adding that he is especially curious to see what might have gone wrong.

Ultimately, Heminger said, the decision on whether to open the bridge over Labor Day weekend is likely to be made by elected officials, including Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown told reporters last week that it was too early to "pull our hair out" over the bridge problems and that he's optimistic everything will be OK.

"Don't know if it's a setback," the governor said. "I mean, look, s- happens."

Jaxon Van Derbeken is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com
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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/B ... z2T826b3se

I had a very strong feeling that once they discovered the first problems and started going deeper into investigating this, that more fuck ups would be uncovered....

It appears I was correct....

I don't think we've yet gotten to the end of the problems that will now be discovered; I fully expect to see articles about new ones....

[Gob]

It looks less and less like I'm going to have slap that Warren sticker on my car, or wear Dallas Cowboy gear:

I was so looking forward to calling you "Lord Debbie".

[Gob]

Who, what, why: How safe are US road bridges?

A four-lane highway bridge in Washington state has collapsed after being struck by a lorry, six years after 13 people were killed when another bridge fell. So how safe are bridges in the US?

Repairs to the collapsed Skagit River bridge will cost an estimated $15m (£10m), but in human terms it could have been far worse.

Only three people were injured as their vehicles fell dozens of feet into the water when Interstate 5 crumbled beneath them, after a girder was struck by a lorry's rig casing.

Dan Sligh needed to "pop" his dislocated shoulder back in order to rescue his wife in the freezing waters after their truck and trailer fell into the river.

After a bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007 claimed 13 lives and injured 145, there was a national review. So has the state of US bridges improved since then?

On one measure, some progress has been made, according to figures provided by the American Society of Engineers.

In 1992, 22% of the country's bridges were labelled "structurally deficient", meaning they required maintenance or replacement. In 2012, that had fallen to 11%. That doesn't mean one in nine bridges is unsafe, but that they are in poor condition.

Andrew Herrmann, the society's president, says the bridge inspection programme is robust but the government is still not spending enough money to update and maintain them.

"Congress basically lacks the courage to do what is needed to raise the funds," he says.

"Bridges require maintenance, and maintenance and rehabilitation require funding.

"Politicians like to show up and cut a ribbon on a brand new bridge, but they don't like to show up and applaud a new paint job that may increase the life of a bridge."

His organisation gave the nation's 607,380 bridges a C+ in its four-yearly report card on the country's infrastructure, which has suffered from years of under-investment.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that clearing the backlog of deficient bridges requires an extra $8bn (£5bn) annually from federal, state, and local governments.

It was unable to supply figures for the number of bridge collapses, but major ones are relatively rare. In 2001, the Queen Isabella Causeway in Texas collapsed, killing eight people.

The bridge in Washington - which as a major highway between Seattle and Vancouver was mostly funded through federal, not state, funds - was not structurally deficient.

Built in 1955, it was "functionally obsolete", a label that applies to bridges that are too old to meet current safety standards.

David Goldberg of Transportation for America says the only thing that's changed since Minnesota is that more of the post-World War II generation of bridges are nearing the end of their intended lives.

"The typical bridge in this country is 43 years old with a design life of 50 years, so a lot of these bridges are at the point where they need a major overhaul."

Congress last year eliminated the dedicated state funding pot for bridge repairs, he says, so it's a "gamble" how much states will now spend on bridges when there are other priorities competing for cash.

"Bridges rated structurally deficient are a red flag for repair or replacement. But these obsolete ones look OK - the problem is they're not designed for the kind of carrying capacity they have now.

"Our concern is we don't get around to replacing bridges like this. And unfortunately I think we are going to see more of these kinds of things in the coming years."

The prospects of more federal cash don't look good either, he says. Although a small portion of the $831bn (£549bn) stimulus package in 2009 provided a boost for bridge repairs, the steady flow of cash from petrol duty is falling due to more efficient cars and Americans driving less.

As a percentage of GDP, US spending on roads has increased to 0.7% in recent years but it is still lower than the European average and less than half that of Japan (1.7%), according to figures from the International Transport Forum.

The UK has a rigorous inspection system and getting funding for bridge repairs is not so difficult, says Gordon Masterton, deputy chairman of the UK's Construction Industry Council, and former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

"I'm not aware of any outcry about penny pinching. The area affected when cash is tight tends to be road surfacing so there are more potholes on the roads.

"Engineers know when structural elements are putting the travelling public at risk and spend the money wisely.

"I've never seen any statistical analysis but it does look like we have far fewer bridge collapses than North America and elsewhere in the world. So we are at least mitigating risk."

Don't hold your breath expecting any impact from the latest one in the US, warns Erich Zimmermann of the Taxpayers for Commonsense.

"If it was hard to get any traction in the wake of a devastating collapse like Minnesota, it's hard to see how this will bring up a whole lot of changes."

[dales]

My Deat Gob....

Let me assure you that if you come here to the SF Bay Area, that I can personally almost guarantee you that the Golden Gate Bridge will not collapse.

The others, I don't know.

[Gob]

Two goods trains have collided in the US state of Missouri, bringing down a road bridge and leaving seven people injured.

The crash, in Scott County, prompted one of the trains to derail, hitting a pillar propping up Highway M, reports said.

Two cars were on the bridge when it collapsed. Five passengers inside the cars were hurt and taken to hospital.

Two people in one of the goods trains were also injured.

The collision happened at 02:30 (07:30 GMT) near Chaffee in south-east Missouri.

Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter told St Louis TV station KMOV that a Union Pacific train had just gone through an intersection when it ploughed into a Burlington Northern train.

Several carriages derailed and as one of the trains hit the bridge, spilt fuel ignited a fire.

None of the injured was said to be in a serious condition.

A week ago, more than 60 people were injured when two commuter trains collided during the rush hour in Connecticut.

[dales]

My Dear Gob....

Let me assure you that if you come here to the SF Bay Area, that I can personally almost guarantee you that the Golden Gate Bridge will not collapse.

There are no trains which run anywhere near the structure.

The others [bridges], I don't know.

[oldr_n_wsr]

the steady flow of cash from petrol duty is falling due to more efficient cars and Americans driving less.

I find this hard to believe given that there are more cars on the road which would offset any kind of fuel economy and cut backs on driving. of course I could be wrong

[dales]

The latest in this comedy of errors.....

sorry for the coarse language but i am soo pissed off at these overpaid fuckwads, i could spit rivets!

Motorists could be forced to use the existing Bay Bridge eastern span for several additional months if Caltrans isn't able to fix its broken-rod problem on the $6.4 billion replacement bridge in time for its scheduled Sept. 3 opening, officials said Wednesday.

The state is unlikely to know until July 10 whether the new bridge will open on time, said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

That's the "drop-dead" date for determining when Caltrans can complete a fix for the broken steel rods, which are used to anchor seismic safety structures on the new bridge, Heminger said at a commission meeting in Oakland.

"We absolutely want to do what's right and not be rushed," Heminger told the panel, which is made up mainly of Bay Area elected officials. [is there anyway we can unelect these shitheads?]

Caltrans set the Labor Day weekend as a target date two years ago because the agency must shut down the existing span for several days to complete the transition to the new bridge. Heminger said that traffic is typically light over Labor Day and that three previous shutdowns over that holiday have gone smoothly.

The state won't shut down the existing span during a normal workweek because of the chaos it could cause on other bridges and BART, Heminger said. It's unclear when traffic and weather conditions will align again to allow for a bridge closure, but it could be months after the Sept. 3 target date, he said.

"You slip a lot past Labor Day and you get into bad weather, you get into the holidays, and you may be looking at a multi-month delay," Heminger said. "The thing I fear most is if we lose this date, are we going to get one back?

"Look, this is the Bay Area," Heminger added. "This project has a pedigree, where every time there's a chance for it to go off the rails, it will."

Caltrans expects to have a decision about the opening date by the transportation commission's next meeting on July 10, Heminger said.

One reason for the delay is that the Mare Island fabricator handling a $10 million replacement for 32 steel rods that snapped on the new span's seismic structures received details of the planned fix only recently, Heminger said.

Many tests
What's more, "a lot of testing" has to be done on 192 additional steel rods that were made to the same specifications as the ones that snapped when workers tightened them in March, Heminger said. "We want to assure ourselves that they are shipshape," he said.

While some have already started, many of those tests won't begin until sometime next month.

Key tests involve submerging some of the 17-foot rods in saltwater and tightening them over time to measure their vulnerability to stress-related corrosion in the marine environment. Heminger said the testing will help officials decide whether and how much to reduce the tension on the rods, as stress is a key contributing risk to cracking.

Other problems
The first batch of high-strength rods broke after being invaded by hydrogen, either during the manufacturing process or while they were exposed to the elements.

Caltrans' chief engineer on the Bay Bridge, Brian Maroney, detailed a number of other "construction challenges" the bridge builders have faced over the years - including welding flaws, corrosion on metal strands used to hold together the skyway and, most recently, the shearing of about 200 bolts on the railing for the bridge's bike path.

"I'm convinced that it's still appropriate to move the public on the bridge even with some of these flaws still in place," Maroney said.

The reason, officials say, is that even with its problems, the new span is likely to be safer than the existing bridge, which opened in 1936 and is considered unlikely to survive an earthquake unscathed.[THEY SURE AS HELL KNEW HOW TO BUILD A BRIDGE DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND DIDN'T FUCK AROUND LIKE THIS ASSSHOLES DO NOW!

Caltrans under review
The problems on the new Bay Bridge are likely to be a focus of an independent, top-to-bottom review of Caltrans that state officials announced Wednesday.

Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the review, but said it had nothing to do with the problems on the new bridge.[yeah, righ.........jerry] Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty echoed that, saying, "It's not directly connected with the Bay Bridge. It's connected with making Caltrans a better department."

The $270,000 review will be conducted by the State Smart Transportation Initiative, based at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.[GAWD, MAYBE THEIR HEADS ARE SCREWED ON RIGHT, NO ONE REMOTELY CONNECTED WITH THIS COLLOSOL CLUSTERFUCK HASN'T A CLUE!] The organization, which includes officials from 19 state departments of transportation including Caltrans, promotes transportation policies and offers technical assistance, according to its website. The review is expected to take about seven months.

State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said he hopes the review will help make Caltrans more accountable to the public.

"Recent issues at the Bay Bridge have illustrated the need for a significant culture change at Caltrans," he said. "It is my hope that a thorough review will lead to reforms that create a more transparent Caltrans."



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/B ... z2Umtn6zCN

I NEED A DAMNED DRINK AND A SMOKE!

[MajGenl.Meade]

".... many problems have been overcome and I am now pleased to declare this bridge...... oh now what the...?"

[dales]

....The bridge won't be ready until the second coming, I know.

[oldr_n_wsr]

a thorough review will lead to reforms that create a more transparent Caltrans."

Yeah right. And I have a bridge for sale (I do own it don't ya know, the Brooklyn Bridge, not that "thing" they are building on the left coast)