NTSB: Gusset plates were too thin on I-35W bridge

Posted at 1:21 PM on January 15, 2008 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)

The NTSB just finished its briefing on the investigation into the I-35W bridge collapse. MPR and AP have stories. Basically, the NTSB says it was a design flaw in the bridge's gusset plates. Here's part of the NTSB release:

************************************************************ NTSB URGES BRIDGE OWNERS TO PERFORM LOAD CAPACITY CALCULATIONS BEFORE MODIFICATIONS; I-35W INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

************************************************************

Washington, DC - The National Transportation Safety Board today issued a safety recommendation that addresses a design issue with the I-35W bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi river on August 1, 2007. In this accident, approximately 1,000 feet of the deck truss fell into the river, and as a result, 13 people died and 145 people were injured.

The recommendation is made to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and states: "for all non-load-path- redundant steel truss bridges within the National Bridge Inventory, require that bridge owners conduct load capacity calculations to verify that the stress levels on all structural elements, including gusset plates, remain within applicable design requirements, whenever planned modifications or operational changes may significantly increase stresses."

"Although the Board's investigation is still on-going and no determination of probable cause has been reached, interim findings in the investigation have revealed a safety issue that warrants attention," said NTSB Chairman Mark V.
Rosenker. "During the wreckage recovery, investigators discovered that gusset plates at eight different joint locations in the main center span were fractured. The Board, with assistance from the FHWA, conducted a thorough review of the design of the bridge, with an emphasis on the design of the gusset plates. This review discovered that the original design process of the I-35W bridge led to a serious error in sizing some of the gusset plates in the main
truss."

Undersized gusset plates were found at 8 of the 112 nodes
(joints) on the main trusses of the bridge. These 16 gusset plates (2 at each node) were roughly half the thickness required and too thin to provide the margin of safety
expected in a properly designed bridge.

The Safety Board emphasizes that there is no evidence to suggest that the deficiencies in the various design review procedures associated with this bridge are widespread or even go beyond this particular bridge. In fact, this is the only bridge failure of this type of which the Safety Board is aware.

"The Safety Board has issued this recommendation, at this time, to ensure that the original design calculations for other bridges of this type have been made correctly, before any planned modification or operational changes are accomplished affecting such bridges and before any
additional stresses are placed on them," Rosenker said.

The probable cause of this accident will be determined when the final report is presented to the Board, currently estimated to be sometime before the end of the year.

The recommendation letter can be found on the Board's website at http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/2008/H08_1.pdf.

Comments (1)

In this day of advanced software, perhaps the civil engineers relied too much on computers which didn't warn them that the modifications being made were overloading the gusset plates.

Somebody should pull the design documents on this bridge going back to the beginning and see if there is a flawed software program or reference book that has the wrong tables in it for plate sizing. Then this program/book can be fixed and any other bridge design based on this same program/book can be reviewed.

It's possible that there is a procedure being skipped as well when this bridge was modified, and this was alluded to in the story: the NTSB recommends that "bridge owners conduct load capacity calculations ... whenever planned modifications or operational changes may significantly increase stresses. (Emphasis added.) In other words, skip the existing bridges that haven't fallen down and killed people yet, but check any new modifications.

Fortunately for us, we have both the FHWA and the Departments of Transportation in the 50 states to review current bridges so that no other bridges fall down.

Posted by Relayman | January 15, 2008 3:18 PM

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