Who wants to bet the inspection consisted of driving across it to go to his GF's apartment or to a bar?

Repair project has been awarded to Kiewit. I worked for them after graduating from TAMU and lived in Memphis for a time while working for them. Nice coincidence for me.

LINK

TDOT Link

Quote:

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The repair will be performed in two phases. Both phases will need to be completed before traffic can re-open on the bridge. At this point, we are unable to project a re-opening date.

Phase 1 will require the installation of steel plates on each side of the fractured member. This repair will strengthen the damaged steel plates providing stability needed for crews to install equipment for the permanent replacement of the damaged components and continue bridge inspections.

Phase 2 design is underway and will be finalized with the input of the contractor. This will enable us to remove and replace the damaged piece and open the bridge to traffic.

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ApachePilot said:

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LC Wannabe said:

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Looks like that "crack" has been there a while.

I-10 bridge in Lake Charles is next. That thing is a disaster waiting to happen.

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that lake Charles bridge worries me!

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The bridge over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge worries me. We go over it twice a year and local media there says it needs to either be replaced or entirely closed and worked on.

45-70Ag said:

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ApachePilot said:

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LC Wannabe said:

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Looks like that "crack" has been there a while.

I-10 bridge in Lake Charles is next. That thing is a disaster waiting to happen.

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that lake Charles bridge worries me!

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The bridge over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge worries me. We go over it twice a year and local media there says it needs to either be replaced or entirely closed and worked on.

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Just think, the I-10 bridge in BR is also their "new bridge" from 1968. Their backup is a few miles north, the 190 bridge built in 1940. Both are steel cantilevered I believe.

TexasAggie_02 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Having a fear of heights, this pic is chilling.

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i love that the bridge inspector wears slick-ass cowboy boots on a smooth metal beam

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Those are rubber soled Ariat workboots. I have the same pair. Probably not my first choice if you told me to tightrope a bridge a hundred feet above the Mississippi, but their traction should be sufficient and I think they are comfortable enough to wear around a construction site 5 days a week.

Iowaggie said:

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ARDOT inspector who did 2019 & 2020 inspection on I-40 bridge has been fired https://t.co/BohiEZbjBl

— Local 24 News (@LocalMemphis) May 17, 2021

Arkansas inspector fired: "From our investigation we have determined the same employee who conducted the inspection in 2019 and 2020 failed to carry out his responsibilities correctly," said ARDOT Director Lorie Tudor. The employee, she said, was terminated from his position Monday morning.

Bridges in Arkansas previously inspected by the terminated employee will be re-inspected immediately.



Photo of inspectors on the top half of bridge.



Stock photo of inspector fired for failing to see damages

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In the 2019 image, it hasn't cracked across the top yet. And from images earlier in this thread taken last week, it had not broken all the way across the bottom yet. If this had gone unnoticed this time, it probably would've broken all the way thru before the next one.

Wrighty said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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The Mississippi River reopened to vessel traffic near Memphis on Friday, the U.S. Coast Guard said, ending a shutdown of a part of the waterway that disrupted shipments of oil and corn and caused a backlog of more than 1,000 barges.

The Coast Guard said the river is open to all vessel traffic without restrictions, after traffic was halted on Tuesday because of a fracture in the Hernando DeSoto Bridge that carries vehicular traffic on Interstate 40 over the river.

"Based on information provided to us by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Coast Guard has determined that transit under the I-40 bridge is safe for maritime traffic," said Coast Guard Capt. Ryan Rhodes, captain of the Port of Memphis.

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Quote:

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The reopening will begin to ease a jam of 62 vessels with a total of 1,058 barges that were waiting to pass through the closed area, according to the Coast Guard.

Almost all grain barges must pass beneath the DeSoto bridge on their way to Gulf of Mexico export facilities near New Orleans after being loaded along the upper Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois or Missouri rivers, according to the Soy Transportation Coalition, an agricultural industry group.

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Link

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I imagine they opened it because of huge business and political pressure, not because it was deemed safe. I'm sure there are technical people at the DOTs that are quite stressed out right now, and I would bet that river traffic is closed down again within days.

I expect they'll close it again soon, and patch on some "emergency repairs" (scab on some side plates and weld it up) that will preclude a catastrophic collapse, and then safely allow river traffic again, while they study it and develop permanent solution.

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The risk in a timing sense to vessels passing under is far less than those to cars attempting to drive over it and add their weight. Vessels passing under do not add to the stress. Hopefully they are doing them one at a time so that the risk to the craft is a single one at any given moment.

titan said:

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Wrighty said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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The Mississippi River reopened to vessel traffic near Memphis on Friday, the U.S. Coast Guard said, ending a shutdown of a part of the waterway that disrupted shipments of oil and corn and caused a backlog of more than 1,000 barges.

The Coast Guard said the river is open to all vessel traffic without restrictions, after traffic was halted on Tuesday because of a fracture in the Hernando DeSoto Bridge that carries vehicular traffic on Interstate 40 over the river.

"Based on information provided to us by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Coast Guard has determined that transit under the I-40 bridge is safe for maritime traffic," said Coast Guard Capt. Ryan Rhodes, captain of the Port of Memphis.

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Quote:

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The reopening will begin to ease a jam of 62 vessels with a total of 1,058 barges that were waiting to pass through the closed area, according to the Coast Guard.

Almost all grain barges must pass beneath the DeSoto bridge on their way to Gulf of Mexico export facilities near New Orleans after being loaded along the upper Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois or Missouri rivers, according to the Soy Transportation Coalition, an agricultural industry group.

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Link

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I imagine they opened it because of huge business and political pressure, not because it was deemed safe. I'm sure there are technical people at the DOTs that are quite stressed out right now, and I would bet that river traffic is closed down again within days.

I expect they'll close it again soon, and patch on some "emergency repairs" (scab on some side plates and weld it up) that will preclude a catastrophic collapse, and then safely allow river traffic again, while they study it and develop permanent solution.

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The risk in a timing sense to vessels passing under is far less than those to cars attempting to drive over it and add their weight. Vessels passing under do not add to the stress. Hopefully they are doing them one at a time so that the risk to the craft is a single one at any given moment.

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The Hubs' has a cousin whose husband is a Mississippi river tug boat pilot. But his outfit is HQed out of Houston. Haven't talked to her yet about how this has affected him, if at all. He is usually two weeks on and two weeks off. Might not have been on the river during that period.

Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

Quote:

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The risk in a timing sense to vessels passing under is far less than those to cars attempting to drive over it and add their weight. Vessels passing under do not add to the stress. Hopefully they are doing them one at a time so that the risk to the craft is a single one at any given moment.

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If Cuomo were in charge here and handled it the same way he handled COVID he would have the barges literally parked under the bridge.

Am I wrong?

TexAggee05 said:

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Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

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5+ years worth of hot stamping? Gotta love state employee work ethic.

Cuomo did what he did at the behest of a large donor, the New York hospitals association or similarly named. They wrote the rule that the elderly positive needed to go to nursing homes and he implemented it.

So unless the river authority said to park the barges underneath the bridge after giving him a slush fund and a million in election campaign funds, he wouldn't do it.

The Fife said:

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TexAggee05 said:

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Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

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5+ years worth of hot stamping? Gotta love state employee work ethic.

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exhibit #1,874,932 illustrating why we don't need big government-run socialist programs for things like medicine, health care, or anything else

Ooooo looks like that blockage in your heart has been there since at least 2016. Whoops, but don't worry the guy who's supposed to look at these things is now inspecting scans for brain cancer.

The Fife said:

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TexAggee05 said:

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Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

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5+ years worth of hot stamping? Gotta love state employee work ethic.

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Hot stamping?

When designing anything, either make it to where it can drain water, or 100% ensure water can never get it into it.

Its always going to be easier to make it drainable.

Those box beams area a corrosion weak point.

But I do think the other resident engineers have weighed in sufficiently. Looks to be a shear failure at a max shear/bending location. Fatigue failure brought on by corrosion.

Corrosion, erosion and maintenance negligence keeps engineers employed.

Squadron7 said:

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The Fife said:

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TexAggee05 said:

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Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

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5+ years worth of hot stamping? Gotta love state employee work ethic.

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Hot stamping?

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Oops, that's an aerospace or USAF term. Hot stamping is where QA buys off an inspection without actually doing it. Something similar is saying an inspector has a roller stamp. He'll just stamp every operation off right down the page without thinking about it.

Getting caught doing either of those two things are a great way to get fired.

pencil whipping a checklist

The Fife said:

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Squadron7 said:

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The Fife said:

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TexAggee05 said:

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Photos show the beam was cracked back in 2016.

Link

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5+ years worth of hot stamping? Gotta love state employee work ethic.

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Hot stamping?

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Oops, that's an aerospace or USAF term. Hot stamping is where QA buys off an inspection without actually doing it. Something similar is saying an inspector has a roller stamp. He'll just stamp every operation off right down the page without thinking about it.

Getting caught doing either of those two things are a great way to get fired.

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I could have sworn hot stamping was where sales comes in and says this work order is hot! And thus a HOT stamp is made.

And then over time, the hot stamp's effectiveness wears out. A SUPER HOT stamp is made to promptly encourage everyone on the assembly floor to give a **** again.

I've talked to areo consultants who have witnessed this continuing through five levels of stamps.

HOT
SUPER HOT
OUT THE DOOR TODAY
PRIVATE PLANE DELIVERY TODAY
PLANE WAITING OUTSIDE

Getting management to throw out their stamps was like asking them to sacrifice one of their children.

Derail over.

I dealt with AOG (airplane on ground, as in someone ****ed up and broke something and now the plane can't fly). There is no priority higher than that, and earlier I used to deal with flight test which is on the critical path to getting a new aircraft type certified. That's slightly important because it allows you to actually still and deliver the things so we were rush rush there too.

Moving to a research and development environment feels weird because the pace is so slow over here.

Its called gun decking

I always think its funny when its 'plane on ground' level hot. Usually the stamp doesn't even need to be there. The stamp has been replaced with someone physically watching that part hop from station to station.

Burdizzo said:

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Ag with kids said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Burdizzo said:

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A couple of fish plates, some 7018 rods, and a Millet Bobcat welding machine, and she'll be good as new.

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Maybe you can't answer this but is it significant that the steel failed away from the rivets, instead of at the rivets???

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Yes.

It IS significant.

And I don't know how often they inspect that bridge, but that COMPLETE FAILURE of the steel integrity didn't just happen in a short time.

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Actually, I would suggest that the lack of rust staining around the break indicates it happened pretty suddenly


(I am not a structural engineer)

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I am acknowledging that I was wrong.

Bumping to include this video.

The #40MSRiverBridge is now fully re-opened to #artraffic. pic.twitter.com/SEFz6uOaME

— Arkansas DOT (@myARDOT) August 2, 2021

Bridge Open

JB Weld can fix anything.