New San Francisco-Oakland Bridge: Serious Danger of Collapse

[susano]

“If the rods go,” Chung said in an interview, “the whole bridge would come down.”

Yun Chung, a retired engineer and metallurgist, read the official report explaining why massive, high-strength steel rods on the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge broke last March and was stunned – then alarmed.

At first glance, Chung said about the July report, he saw obvious errors – some typographical, others that confused basic terminology. Digging deeper, he discovered more important problems. He concluded that the analysis defied metallurgical science and common sense.

“I think it’s very shameful that in this public document, this important (oversight) report, there are so many errors. (I have) a sense of outrage,” Chung said in an interview last week.

Diverting attention from caring for his disabled wife, Chung, 81, said he spent hundreds of hours reviewing the report, consulting the technical literature and writing – with another engineer – a 105-page rebuttal. Chung, who had worked for Bechtel Corp., and Lisa K. Thomas, a materials engineer at Berkeley Research Company, a consulting and test lab, recently prepared an 18-page supplement to the report after a request from The Sacramento Bee to further detail their concerns.

Their unsolicited peer-reviewed report, which the two engineers completed in October, has gained traction among eminent engineers and a key elected official, and has begun to garner attention from bridge authorities.

The often-scathing critique disputes official assurances about the reliability of hundreds of high-strength steel rods that support the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

The two engineers challenged basic assumptions about why 32 rods that secured seismic gear on the eastern pier of the new suspension span broke in March.

Chung and Thomas wrote that hundreds of rods that attach the main suspension cable to its eastern anchorage and affix the tower to its foundation appear vulnerable – not just the ones that broke. They called those rods “fracture critical.”

“It means that their failures can bring down the entire (suspension) bridge,” they said.

Cont., http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/08/598...#storylink=cpy

[tod evans]

Wiki link about the bridge..


2002 construction....Long past the age of American steel and overcautious engineers.

Federal dollars require low-bid work and trusting suppliers to deliver material to spec.

I expect to see more sub-standard work on other federal projects coming to light as time progresses.

[acptulsa]

And they actually took down a bridge that was made when steel was steel and was time-tested and proven under fire to put this boondoggle up...

[phill4paul]

'Merica. Where progress means imports. SMFH. If that bridge ever comes down the surviving family of those killed need to hang those that approved it from the remnants.

[Cleaner44]

I found a website for the bridge.
http://baybridgeinfo.org/