On August 1, 2007, the Minneapolis bridge collapsed that connected Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others. On January 15th the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued recommendations informing the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of the interim findings of its investigation. The board discovered undersigned gusset plates that fractured early in the collapse. Then the NTSB asked that the FHWA require every owner and operator of bridges with similar designs to determine whether gusset plates on those bridges were strong enough to withstand any loads greater than they were originally designed for. The I-35W bridge was originally designed by the firm of Sverdrup & Parcel and was built between 1964 and 1967 by Hurcon Incorporated and Industrial Construction Company, both from Cleveland Ohio. This bridge is fracture critical, in that it contained no redundancies in its load paths and if one element were to fail the entire bridge could also fail. Mark Rosenker, the chairman of the NTSB said that they had not seen anything happen like it before. They found that there was an error in calculations and the gussets were undersigned. In August the FHWA issued recommendations advising bridge owners to immediately reinspect all steel deck tress bridges since the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge. Recommendations were made on January 15th by the US Department of Transportation about the gusset plates to ensure bridge safety. The collapse of this bridge is quite an ethical problem in more ways than one, including the flaw in design. Then comes the usual red tape to uncover whose to blame for the disaster. Since the design flaw was not detected by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), lives were lost. I really don't want to place any blame because all parties involved should step up to the plate. Hopefully the US Department of Transportation's recommendations about this issue will be used in every way to ensure the safety of all passengers who travel along our highways, road and bridges across the nation.
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2 comments:
Undersigned: one who signs his name at the end of a document (Webster's)
You mean uder-designed
I feel that you really can’t point the finger at anyone mistakes do happen unfortunately and instances like this must occur in order for dramatic change in how anything is designed changed, yes there was human error involved here because of the miscalculations and the gussets were undersigned, I don’t feel like there is an ethical issues here because it wasn’t like the design of the bridge was overlooked on purpose, the only thing that can be done now it to ensure that this never happens again and no family have to suffer because of human error, I see this case as a negligence case not an ethical issue.
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