https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/arecibo/Arecibo-Telescope-Collapse-Forensic-Investigation-508c.pdf https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/arecibo/Are

https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/arecibo/Arecibo-Telescope-Collapse-Forensic-Investigation-508c.pdf https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/arecibo/Arecibo-Tel... Go to pdf page 53-ish. They show the zinc doesn't continue to creep if the load is below a threshold-- technically the zinc doesn't creep if it's not subject to persistent shear forces, which is won't be if the cable load is below a threshold as the wires take up the load. This essentially results in a long term capacity which is different from the short term capacity. Unfortunately the ratio between the two depends on the wire splaying geometry which isn't well controlled, resulting in wide differences. The report concludes that if it had been built to a safety factor of 3 rather than 2, the issues wouldn't have been experienced. Alternatively, the failure could have been avoided by reacting to flow over some threshold (which was noticed well in advance, but not reacted to) Presumably we don't see similar failures in sockets in suspension bridges because they're built at a safety factor of 5+ and usually that's a SF over their rarely reached maximum load rather than a factor over their 24/7 load.