Engineers really know their stuff

[NP317]

Another potential major issue with that bridge "assembly" is that it appears the entire 2-span structure would eventually be supported by cables from a tower.
My "instincts" say that placing that span with no vertical support, and then installing the cables, is ridiculous! The span is then required to entirely support itself, which it did not do.
Every other cable-supported span I have seen, erected the tower and cables first, and secured the span sections to those.
The post-collapse analysis and reports will be interesting.
Really sad that lives were lost.

Back to making my locomotive.
~RN

[Steggy]

A buddy down in Florida, who was in Miami on the day this bridge collapsed, opined that the bridge and the poor souls who were killed by the collapse were the victims of (his words) "affirmative action engineering." No way of knowing if that was a factor, but it wouldn't be the first time.

[SteveHGraham]

Or a lawyer.

Blasphemy!

Another potential major issue with that bridge "assembly" is that it appears the entire 2-span structure would eventually be supported by cables from a tower.
My "instincts" say that placing that span with no vertical support, and then installing the cables, is ridiculous! The span is then required to entirely support itself, which it did not do.

I wondered about that, too. And they let cars run under it before they put cables on it.

"affirmative action engineering."

See my comments above, on my uncle's assessment of the Challenger disaster.

The bridge firm may have hired sketchy engineers for diversity reasons, but if it was a typical Miami outfit, I would be surprised. Cubans have heavy-duty racism issues no one talks about. I would expect Cuban engineers, related to the firm's owner if at all possible, and illegal laborers.

[warmstrong1955]

That was one of my questions. Was the truss strong enough to support itself, without the suspension? They say it was in that pdf I posted....but obviously not the case.
Normal procedure for building a suspension bridge, is the suspension is built first. The anchors, pylons, cables, the stays, go in, and the last thing is roadway. This one....bass ackwards.

[stephenc]

In the late 90's I worked at a limestone quarry in n/w Pennsylvania .
The job site had a relatively new to us very large dragline operating , the engineers made a few very bad choices with the machine that didn't end well .
First bad choice was the decided to short ballast the machine by some 2500-3000 tons ... yes that is correct 2500-3000. Tons .
Then a decision was made to move the machine onto spoil versus virgin rock to save three weeks of down time to walk the machine to its next cut .

The engineers gave a whole long spiel at the weekly safety meeting on how this was safe because the machine was under weight and the spoil would support it because of being under weight .

The first day of operations didn't go well , you could visibly see the machine rocking as it worked ( not good with an 11,000 ton machine ) rumor has it the operator complained but was told to keep working .
The second day things went very bad , the bench gave way under the machine and it toppled into the cut with loss of life and some severe injuries .

Being somewhat young at the time it made me take everything an engineer said with a grain of salt where safety came into play and short cuts where being taken in the name of costs

[Mr Ron]

IAmerican engineers never figured out that a car should only have one key. Remember? Unbelievable. They finally stole the idea from the Japanese.

There was a time when there was a separate key for the glove box/trunk and the ignition. Reason being one could lock something of value in the box or trunk when you gave the key to valet parking. I'll bet valets look in glove boxes now and then, and not for gloves.

When it comes to engineers, I once worked on a Navy ship as a "designer" not an engineer. At a time when the aerospace project was winding down at Litton Industries, they had an over abundance of "aerospace engineers". To put them to work, Litton took on a marine engineering project, building an AE class of replenishment ship. The plans called for an overhead bi-rail system with rails spaced so many feet and inches apart. Here is where engineering failed. Aerospace engineers being used to working to very close tolerances, chose to apply a tolerance to the system of thousands of an inch. The result was the overhead crane would bind whenever the ship rolled or the temperature changed. This was a lesson learned by the newbee shipbuilder.

[tornitore45]

as a "designer" not an engineer

More often than not there is no difference. If one can design then is an engineer, any engineer worth the title should be able to design. The real difference is in the experience, in other world how many times you learned a valuable lesson from your mistakes.

[SteveHGraham]

Designers? Fresh meat! Somebody made the drawings for the Pontiac Aztek and thought they were okay!

[warmstrong1955]

Designers? Fresh meat! Somebody made the drawings for the Pontiac Aztek and thought they were okay!

That cat was a genius....compared to the guy who designed the AMC Pacer!

[SteveHGraham]

Designers? Fresh meat! Somebody made the drawings for the Pontiac Aztek and thought they were okay!

That cat was a genius....compared to the guy who designed the AMC Pacer!

That was his dad.

[warmstrong1955]

That was his dad.

That....makes perfect sense!

[warmstrong1955]

You make the call.

What caused 'em?
A: Opium
B: LSD
C: Cerebral flatulation