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New bridge collapses into river in eastern Saskatchewan hours after opening
- notacoward 8y agoMove fast. Test in prod, lol.
- izzydata 8y agoLooks like the closer sides pillars sunk.
- chris_mc 8y agoI was going to say a similar thing: Almost looks like the foundations/pilings sunk on the one side, causing the concrete to fracture at the support points since it was being "bent" and then the slabs to fall off of the support once it had sunk enough. Kinda like this brick domino video [0], but with much larger slabs. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BTWiZ7CYoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BTWiZ7CYoI
- gerdesj 8y agoYes, the bottom of the cross bracings are underwater on the near side and well above the surface on the far side.
- syntheticnature 8y agoHuh. Canada takes engineering quite seriously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge#First_design_and_collapse_of_August_29,_1907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge#First_design_and... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
- pmalynin 8y agoLol who told you that. Engineering in Canada is essentially cultism. Also here where I live (Edmonton) — the contractors had to rebuild the bridge because even before they finished building it, it became bent. During the latest election season a funny line came up during the debates: “Our friends to the south are sending rockets into space, and we’re still trying to figure out how to build bridges” As I typed that I also just remember a piece of news about our new LRT line. The new “high tech” signaling system is essentially broken, forcing the train operators to run in “visual identification mode” —- meaning half the speed so they can stop if they see something on the tracks. There is a lawsuit, and the company has until December to fix it. The line has been open for about 2 years now.
- jrockway 8y agoI mean, our bridges in the US are not necessarily great. From the Tacoma Narrows bridge to the I-35W bridge... sometimes they collapse.
- donatj 8y agoIn MN, since the I-35W went down, I’d go so far as to categorize the bridges that have gone up as appearing “overbuilt”. Which is probably a good thing. It at least appears to me like they’re taking bridge safety seriously. Inspection of existing bridges kicked up strongly, and Dailing bridge inspections make the news.
- stephengillie 8y agoNarrows was almost a century ago, and taught bridge builders to consider airflow. The more recent I-5 bridge collapse was because a truck was too tall and collided with bridge supports.
- dboreham 8y agoOr perhaps: because designers failed to take into account the possibility that someone would drive a too tall trck over the bridge?
- theandrewbailey 8y agoI'm not a bridge engineer, but I'm pretty sure that height requirements are there for a reason. In fact, I looked at this incident last week, and it seemed that there was a different maximum height depending on which lane you were in, but that was ignored/not acted on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_Bridge_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_Bridge_collap... The vertical clearance from the roadway to the upper arched beam in the outer lane is 14 feet 7 inches (4.45 m), and all trucks with oversize loads are expected to travel in the inside lane where the clearance is around 17 feet (5.2 m). The oversize truck instead entered the bridge in the outer lane, while a second semi-truck and a BMW were passing it in the inner lane. ... A pilot car was hired to ensure the load could pass safely. The pilot car never signalled the truck driver that there would be a problem crossing the Skagit bridge and did not warn the trucker to use an inside lane.
- jessaustin 8y agoThere might well be problems with the supports, but I'm surprised that there are no beams in this design. Steel beams would be the most practical for this size, but I don't see any pre-stressed concrete beams either. Concrete deck is poured in place with non-stressed reinforcement, so it isn't very resistant to bending, and is rarely expected to span such a distance by itself. I know of a shorter one-lane bridge that never has more than one tractor or big truck on it at one time, that nevertheless has a 6" steel beam under the concrete deck under each tire track. Perhaps it was over-engineered, but then again perhaps the bridge in TFA was under-engineered...
- ggcdn 8y agoIt looks to me like they are using timbers as beams, simply supported on the steel piers. It's a very common bridge design for forest service roads and other rural routes.
- niftich 8y agoCan you point out where you see timber beams in the photo? I can't even find a place where they would go; to me the deck looks like pour-in-place unreinforced concrete that sheared right off at the piers; the deck is then covered in what looks like gravel (which also seems a bit bizarre), then a wooden guardrail on wooden posts is bolted into the concrete deck.
- cmsmith 8y agoThe bridge looks to be precast concrete box-girders (hollow rectangular beams with plenty of steel reinforcement around the edges). The 'gravel' is the asphalt roadway (often this will be cast-in-place concrete) that's poured on top of the precast girders. The purpose of pouring the asphalt/concrete roadway on top is as a sacrificial wear element to prevent the structural beams being worn down by traffic.
- ggcdn 8y agoAh, it looked like timbers on my phone, but on a large screen it does look like precast. Definitely not unreinforced concrete though, and not poured in place. You can see how its made up of 6 individual beams https://i.imgur.com/Kt85XFR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Kt85XFR.jpg
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- perilunar 8y agoEven if it wasn't collapsed that would still be a pretty lame looking bridge. Why would you put piles in the river for such a short span? Why is the design so ugly?
- McKayDavis 8y agoGoogle reverse image search found a higher resolution (2472x1930) photo of the collapsed bridge: https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/984273818587a1353cda15d940bb17e9/206675182/19764398.jpg https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/984273818587a1353cda1... I'm not saying it's not new... but it doesn't _look_ new.
- derefr 8y agoIt might have been, say, three years under construction, with a contract dispute interrupting construction for 2.8 of those years, the bridge sitting half-constructed and getting rain-weathered the entire time, and then just finally this month, construction resumed, was completed, and the bridge opened. You know, like most Canadian buildings. (Here in Vancouver, I see plenty of stick-built buildings left half-constructed due to developer or zoning problems, with their frames and plywood panelling just left exposed to the elements for months; and then construction resumes and the building has sheeting and cladding and insulation slapped on over just a few days. I've always wondered whether that traps in the moisture that's accumulated in the wood over the previous months, leading to those buildings having mould problems later on...)
- jacquesm 8y agoThey could very well end up with expanding plywood or osb syndrome, which makes the building much less structurally sound and might require expensive repairs down the line. Mould would be the least of your problems!
- ggcdn 8y ago> You know, like most Canadian buildings. Not sure where you got that idea from, but as a structural engineer in Vancouver I generally see the exact opposite. Once construction starts, it's an all out scramble to finish as quickly as possible. Also, zoning problems occur at the building permit stage, which is well before construction starts.
- derefr 8y agoI only know what I see walking around the neighbourhoods I frequent: buildings (usually single-family dwellings, but sometimes low-rises) that have sat half-completed, with no active construction, for months or even years. I’ve always assumed it was a result of either the development company or their general contractor going out of business / running out of budget before completion; and that, when construction resumes, it’s because the site has been liquidated and sold at auction to a new developer. Other times, buildings (usually commercial) are left 90% finished for years at a time—clad and insulated, but not wired or finished inside. I assume this these buildings are actually as finished as they’re going to get, and are for sale, waiting for an initial owner to decide how they want to finish them (instead of having to rip out and redo the previous interior and exterior), and they just aren’t being publically advertised. They still look kind of like blighted abandoned buildings, though, and kind of destroy the character of a neighbourhood in a similar way to the half-built homes.
- gumby 8y agoCanada still has reeves!!!?!?!? I thought that term was completely obsolete. Do they have beedles too? South of the border the US still has plenty of shire-reeves though, though no shires!
- jschwartzi 8y agoThe county shire-reeve is quite helpful in policing the unincorporated areas.
- gumby 8y agoIndeed that's their primary function in California. At the other extreme: in Massachusetts their primary function is to provide a favor for some someone the governor owes a favor.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> > The county shire-reeve is quite helpful in policing the unincorporated areas. > Indeed that's their primary function in California. I think that depends on the county and the degree and population of unincorporated land; running the local detention and corrections system is arguably a more important role in much of California (certainly so in SF, where the City and County are coextensive so that there is no unincorporated land to police.)
- k_sze 8y agoWhere do you think Keanu comes from? ;-) (badumtss) Jokes aside, I graduated from Concordia University in Montreal and feel quite ironic that the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition is a thing while we seem to suck at building real bridges. Montreal has its fair share of bad bridges. IIRC, the Champlain Bridge was touted as not requiring salt for de-icing in winter; it was never designed to protect against salt, yet it was salted every winter. The concrete is so damaged that a new bridge had to be built to replace it (which should complete this year, I haven't been back to Montreal in a long time so I don't know what it looks like now).
- rossdavidh 8y agoThey keep saying "built to Canadian standards" in this article. I'm sure they mean that as "built to 1st world, legally relevant standards", but given the context it sounded like they were saying "Canadian standards" as an excuse for why it fell down. However, the previous bridge, presumably also built to Canadian standards, held up for half a century and was still working (albeit apparently not looking great) when they ordered it replaced.
- zero_intp 8y agoI am to understand that in all of her Majesties kingdoms they have regulations against making things of cardboard such that the front does not fall off.
- rdtsc 8y ago> "Canadian standards" as an excuse for why it fell down. It's a bit like here in US some construction companies will advertise they "build to code". That sounds scary to me, as all I hear is they would really like to cut corners, but it's those pesky building codes getting in the way.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoIt's not so much that they want to build crap (margins are better on "nice" things anyway) but that if you have to do something you may as well list it as a feature. It's like how all the electronic nannys on modern cars are advertised as features even though they're required. Relevant illustration: https://xkcd.com/641/ https://xkcd.com/641/ Construction companies and contractors make money building things. An estimate, quote or contract for whatever work is being done typically includes a profit margin on materials, labor and anything sub'd out. If anything they want code that specifies everything be grossly overbuilt.
- slobotron 8y agoAvE's gonna have a field day...
- technofiend 8y agoHe will probably invent several new words to describe the clusterfark that resulted from (most likely) substandard materials or practices being used. Whether intentionally or not it seems like a logical explanation.
- dredmorbius 8y agoWho?
- dewyatt 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWv6Pn_zP0rI6lgGt3MyfA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWv6Pn_zP0rI6lgGt3MyfA
- niftich 8y agoThe bridge is at 52.114667, -102.139722 [1][2], on a road named 'Dyck Memorial Road' (unsigned) [3], west of the hamlet of Swan Plain which lies at the intersection of SK Highway 8 and the aforementioned road. The previous bridge was closed to heavy traffic in late 2017 [4], and the complete replacement was planned over the summer of 2018 [5][6]. The project was tendered and awarded to Can-Struct of Regina, SK, for CAD 325,000 [7]. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/52°06'52.8"N+102°08'23.0"W/ https://www.google.com/maps/place/52°06'52.8"N+102°08'23.0"W... [2] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/256112153 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/256112153 [3] http://myrm.info/333/files/2017/11/RM333_2017_Fall.pdf http://myrm.info/333/files/2017/11/RM333_2017_Fall.pdf [4] http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge-dyck-memorial-road/ http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge-dyck-memorial... [5] http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge/ http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge/ [6] http://myrm.info/333/notices/dyck-memorial-bridge/ http://myrm.info/333/notices/dyck-memorial-bridge/ [7] https://www.sasktenders.ca/content/public/print.aspx?competitionId=e6768101-7e1f-485a-b973-7cea1cea74bb https://www.sasktenders.ca/content/public/print.aspx?competi...
- JamesCoyne 8y agoCan-Struct looks to be a general contractor. No Engineers or techs listed with them on linked-in. Their website is down right now. best description of the company here: https://swwa.ca/suppliers/can-struct-systems-inc/ https://swwa.ca/suppliers/can-struct-systems-inc/
- niftich 8y agoEngineering was done by Inertia Solutions [1][2][3] from Regina, which CBC reports [4] as having the same owner as Can-Struct. Also, archive.org has partial backups [5] of can-struct.ca but are incomplete. From browsing around a bit, it looks like they've designed/built a number of similar bridges, although their others look like shorter spans at an amateur glance. Not that that necessarily means anything. [1] http://www.inertiasolutions.ca/home.html http://www.inertiasolutions.ca/home.html [2] https://www.facebook.com/inertiasolutionsregina/ https://www.facebook.com/inertiasolutionsregina/ [3] https://www.linkedin.com/company/inertia-solutions-inc https://www.linkedin.com/company/inertia-solutions-inc [4] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/clayton-rm-bridge-collapse-1.4827748 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/clayton-rm-bridge-c... [5] https://web.archive.org/web/*/can-struct.ca https://web.archive.org/web/*/can-struct.ca
- danieltrembath 8y ago2018 alone has enough content for Henry Petroski's next book.
- reaperducer 8y agoThe anchor in the video keeps referring to "the R.M." For those of us not up on Canadian geographic or political abbreviations, what does that mean?
- angersock 8y agoI'm slowly coming around to be thankful we don't build software like we build bridges.
- finaliteration 8y agoSome of the software I’ve seen (and written) begs to differ.
- zaarn 8y agoIf we build software like bridges then I wouldn't have to reboot my computer because the taskbar vanished twice a month.
- wiredfool 8y agoWell, My bridge is still standing. My software has not lasted as well.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThat barely qualified as a bridge before it collapsed. They'd be better off with a portable "launchable" bridge from the US military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_AVLB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_AVLB
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- kelvin0 8y agoWonder if this is due to a sinkhole type phenomena. They've caused a lot of damage on public infrastructure in the past years it seems.
- ramshanker 8y agoOnly today, my parallel-boss was explaining to me that only Canadian Codes have started allowing monolithic bridge instead of traditional simply supported configuration. And evening, I get this news. Though only top slabs seems like monolithic construction, and main bridge girder is still piece-wise simply supported. It's enlightening to hear from the seniors. Moreover, absence of R/f in top slab seems to be a demo case of new age "Just do it with our admixture (chemicals)" pitching we get from some of the manufactures. EDIT: Looking from the picture: My first guess is support settlement of one of the intermediate columns. One more thing, I found strange was that we generally tend to avoid Steel Columns going below the top level of the water in the stream, generally we keep Concrete coming few metre above the water level and than steel starting, but the far off columns stills seems to be going into the water. Even though, it's not that rare, all offshore steel platform have still going into water but they are designed with far stringent specifications and definitely not for such small scale bridges.
- mturmon 8y agoFrom the tweet embedded in TFA: "The bridge was built to Canadian Bridge Standards and unfortunately something under the riverbed failed, that could not have been anticipated. This caused the pier to sink and the middle span to fall off the pier cap and into the river. "
- throwaway5250 8y ago> that could not have been anticipated Whew! For a moment there, I thought it might have failed due to poor engineering, [sic] that could be corrected in the future.
- m-p-3 8y agoSo something in the riverbed failed now, but that didn't seem to be an issue for the previous bridge that was there for ~50 years. I can't reject the possibility, but that seems oddly timed.
- cgoecknerwald 8y agoWhat is r/f? I couldn't find an obvious answer with a quick search.
- rezeroed 8y agoI obviously know nothing about this sort of engineering, because to me this looks like a teeny weeny bridge, taking ~50 cars a day - it breaking is barely more newsworthy to me than dropping my coffee. Is this a sort of "not just in Italy..." story?
- etrevino 8y agoI assumed it was just the novelty of the bridge breaking immediately after being finished.
- goshx 8y agoStrange that this story picked up while in Miami a new bridge at FIU collapsed even before inauguration and took some lives with it and HN didn't bother much.