Group 19 Stephen Cunningham Jake Kinsella Lisa O’Reilly Tristan Kovero Anne Lise Taine Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 Designed by Society of Civil Engineers  Constructed in 1928 by General Corporation and American Bridge Company  Important transport link between Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio  Know as “The Silver Bridge” due to aluminium paint  Span: 682m  Width: 6.7m Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 Revolutionary “Eye-Bar” design similar to links in a chain: Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 New high strength, heat treated carbon steel increased load capacity  Cost effective design  Very redundant design, but stronger steel “balanced out” these redundancies  Reliant on manufacturing standards Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 “Rocker” Towers  Not rigidly fixed to base  Adapt to live loads and temperature variations  Unique anchorage system-cheaper than traditional anchorage to bed rock  Reinforced concrete trough filled with soil and reinforced concrete Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 15 th December 1967 at 5pm  39 years in service  46 killed, 9 injured  Major transport route destroyed Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 Single eyebar on lower support failed  Failure due to corrosion and increased loading  Load transferred to surrounding links and caused massive failure  Weight of standard car tripled during service life Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 Technology at the time could not detect minute cracks  Loads could not have been predicted  Modern technology couldn’t detect cracks without dismantling and inspecting bridge Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

 National Bridge Inspection Standards-“NBIS” founded  New protocols and inspection techniques  Many bridges deemed unsafe replaced Point Pleasant Bridge Collapse

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