When designing large structures such as bridges, ships, dams and various modes of transportation, engineers must determine what methods and materials should be used in order to design, construct, and maintain the structure for a long period of time. A strict code of ethics must be followed in order to reduce any possible damages and tragedies. Though this process is used to try and minimize any design errors and possible failures, unknown factors such as population increase, natural disasters, and insufficient manpower can cause the structure to fail. Such is the case for the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge and the Mianus River Bridge.
The failure of the Mianus River Bridge occurred on June 28, 1983. One hundred feet of the northbound bridge collapsed into the Mianus River which caused three fatalities. The bridge itself was constructed in 1958 as a part of I-95 which is an interstate that runs from Florida to Maine. It was designed in the pin and hanger style that was primarily used in the 1950s in order to reduce the cost of the construction. The bridge is located in Greenwich, Connecticut and was made up of three lanes flowing in each direction and was supposed to be monitored and maintained by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. At one point during the bridge use, a decision was made to cover the drain holes in the bridge which prevented any water build up. This decision, coupled with the fact that the bridge was considered a failure critical bridge, caused it to fail. Since the water was not being routed to a drainage source, it would settle into the cracks and foundation which would later affect the pins in the bridge. Once the lower pin failed in the bridge, too much stress was forced onto the upper pins ...
... middle of paper ...
...ons once the bridge was finished.
Since the pin and hanger style bridge was often considered a failure critical bridge, it has not been used anymore in the construction of new bridges in the United States since the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge. Many have decided to retrofit pin and hanger styled bridges with a type of safety net called a “catcher’s mitt” which is a beam that is placed underneath the girder in order to catch it should the bridge fail. Also, retrofitting the bridge with larger gusset plates has been considered. In terms of the I-35 Minnesota bridge, if the points of water draining were left open the bridge would not have collected water and cause corrosion in the pins and eventual bridge failure. By preparing for any natural events that the bridge may interact with while in use during the design process could also prevent any more failures.
Have you ever thought about driving over a suspension bridge held up by cables? That’s what the Mackinac Bridge is. With the building of the Mackinac Bridge there has been many positive effects that have come out of it.
Steven Hermosillo Professor Wallace Fire Tech 105 15 November 2015 Silver Bridge Collapse According to Wikipedia, Forty-six people were killed in the silver-bridge collapse and another nine people were injured. “The Silver Bridge was an eye-bar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge connected Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, over the Ohio River” (Wikipedia). This was a highly used bridge serving thousands of cars a day before the collapse.
The Bailey Island Bridge is located in Harpswell, Maine on Route 24. Before the making of the bridge, the fishermen that lived on Bailey’s Island wanted a bridge that connected their island to Orr’s Island. The town of Harpsweell made and voted on their decisions in the weekly town meetings (“Bailey”). The project was stalled because of some of the mainlanders in the town, but it was brought back up for discussion in 1912. They first agreed on a “road” which would connect the two islands and would be constructed with timber. This was to cost $3,000. The cost quickly reached $25,000 at a later town meting because they decided to build the bridge with stone and concrete instead. Once the legislature decided to pass a bill stating that it would fun state’s highway and bridge projects, they decided to move forward with the project (Hansen, 36).
On Friday, July 17, 1981, the Hyatt Regency Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri hosted a dance party, which was held in the hotel’s atrium lobby. One of the atrium lobby’s defining features was the presence of elevated walkways that were suspended from the ceiling. About 1,600 people attended the event, mostly occupying the lobby floor; however many guests were either standing or dancing on the suspended walkways as well. Tragically, at approximately 7:05 P.M. a loud crack was heard as two of the walkways collapsed onto the lobby floor below killing 114 people and injuring 216 more. Investigations following this event revealed that the walkways were not designed in a way that was structurally sound, rendering them prone to catastrophic failure. In order to make efforts to avoid such tragedies in the future, it is necessary to evaluate the engineers whose work led to the collapse of the walkways. A consideration of their ethical behavior through the framework of virtue ethics may provide insight into what virtues engineers, and aspiring engineering students, must possess so that their work is done properly with the safety of the general public in mind. To this end, it is useful to first provide some background information on the structure of the suspended walkways and to pinpoint the specific cause of their collapse.
The enormous responsibility that an engineer has when designing a project is often overlooked. His or her job is not only to create a design that will work under ideal conditions, but that will meet the regulations of environmental and building codes and will also survive the unpredictable forces of nature that structures are sometimes subjected to. An article in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, "Structures are Held up by Both Skill and Luck,"1 describes many risks involved in the designing process and the failures that can occur when small details are overlooked. In light of a recent surge of failures in the Northwest, the article says:
BRONX- 25 year old man is found dead after driving off the Bronx Neck Bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk of his car at around 2:00am.
Following the collapse of the I-35 Bridge, other bridges in the country, with similar construction designs, were scrutinized. According to federal statistics, more than 70,000 of the 607,363 or roughly 12 percent of the bridges in the United States are classified as “structurally deficient.”
According to Suspension bridges: Concepts and various innovative techniques of structural evaluation, “During the past 200 years, suspension bridges have been at the forefront in all aspects of structural engineering” (“Suspension”). This statement shows that suspension bridges have been used for over 200 years, and that people are still using them today because they are structurally better bridges. This paper shows four arguments on the advantages of suspension bridges, and why you should use one when building a bridge. When deciding on building a suspension bridge, it has many advantages such as; its lightness, ability to span over a long distance, easy construction, cost effective, easy to maintain, less risk
Staten Island is a part of New York as well. Since it was dispatched from the main New York City, in the 1950s there were only 3% of the entire New York City population living there. Even though it occupies 16% of New York City’s land mass, there was little people in Staten Island relative to the mainland city. Furthermore, there was no link to the mainland resulting in a lack of urban development in the island as transportation facilities are weak and not efficient. Therefore it served as a residential suburb. In 1964 a direct surface link was introduced in the form of the Verrazano- Narrows Bridge. Approximated travel time from Staten Island to the Mayor’s Office became 30 minutes. Since travel time
People who thinks of Thornton Wilder primarily in terms of his classic novella “Our Town,” The Bridge of San Luis Rey will seem like quite a switch. For one thing, he has switched countries; instead of middle America, he deals here with Peru. He has switched eras, moving from the twentieth century back to the eighteenth. He has also dealt with a much broader society than he did in “Our Town,” representing the lower classes and the aristocracy with equal ease. But despite these differences, his theme is much the same; life is short, our expectations can be snuffed out with the snap of a finger, and in the end all that remains of us is those we have loved.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is perhaps the most notorious failure in the world of engineering. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 just months after its opening on July 1, 1940. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff and at its time it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of over half a mile long. The bridge was very narrow and sleek giving it a look of grace, but this design made it very flexible in the wind. Nicknamed the "Galloping Gertie," because of its undulating behavior, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge drew the attention of motorists seeking a cheap thrill. Drivers felt that they were driving on a roller coaster, as they would disappear from sight in the trough of the wave. On the last day of the bridge's existence it gave fair warning that its destruction was eminent. Not only did it oscillate up and down, but twisted side to side in a cork screw motion. After hours of this violent motion with wind speeds reaching forty and fifty miles per hour, the bridge collapsed. With such a catastrophic failure, many people ask why such an apparently well thought out plan could have failed so badly?(This rhetorical question clearly sets up a position of inquiry-which iniates all research.) The reason for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still controversial, but three theories reveal the basis of an engineering explanation. (Jason then directly asserts what he found to be a possible answer to his question.)
Bridge efficiency is important as it helps reduce cost of building while maximizing the strength of the bridge. Many things can influence the bridge’s strength and weight, but the two main things that can cause a bridge to be a failure or success is the design of the bridge and construction of its joints. In order to build a potent balsa truss bridge, it is crucial to know how the layout of members and style of gluing can help increase or decrease strength.
During the past two centuries a various number of bridges and buildings had been structurally failed and collapsed all over the world. Some of these cases caused a sizeable number of human losses. For example, collapse of Tay Bridge in 1879 killed at least sixty persons. Beside the problems related to their construction and design, probably the miscarriage to follow engineering ethics correctly was partly responsible for these incidents. Growing engineering professionalism during the nineteenth century gave rise to the development of a number of famous engineering societies, such as American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME) (1871), American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE ( (1884), etc. Instead, responding to series of significant structural failures mentioned above, some engineering societies developed formal codes of ethics.
In conclusion, civil engineers have a responsibility to deal with current issues in a professional and ethical manner for the benefit of society. The topics discusses included: high energy consumption of buildings, the need for efficient water resources, transportation planning, poor infrastructures doomed to failure, the need to have higher standards to become a licensed professional engineer, how globalization has affected all engineers, and the need to have more professional use advance engineering informatics. All these subjects were pondered about how these challenges can be overcome are there effective methods that engineers can apply today. Unfortunately, not all problems are easy to handle.
Mechanical engineers have a responsibility of ensuring they abide by general ethics as that have been laid down by engineering bodies such as the American Society of Mechanical engineers. Engineers have to sound alarm whenever safety violations are breached or when the organization does not perform required procedures that may endanger lives. It is the engineer’s duty to inform members of the public whenever legal bodies fail to nullify projects which may cause disasters.