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Minneapolis Bridge Collapse


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WDAY has it.

Thanks. One thing I can't stand about situations like this is when the national network talking heads talk over the local coverage with their mindless speculation. Why can't they just let the local reporters on the scene who know more about what's going on tell us?

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For those of you that aren't that familiar with the twin cities, the bridge was 35W both directions (north and south) near minneapolis. There was a Twins game about to start and reports say that traffic was bumper to bumper, the bridge collapsed from end to end around 6pm. I am hoping and praying that my friends and coworkers were not involved and praying for all those that were.

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The baseball game is on as scheduled. They had a report from Twins President Dave St. Peter, who said they didnt want to cancel and send all that traffic back out on the roads, and possibly hamper the efforts of the emergency vehicles and workers.

There is bad weather approaching the twin cities as well.

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There were some stuctural concerns about this bridge, but a 2001 report determined that no failure was expected over the remaining life of the bridge. One of the major concerns was the lack of any structural redundancy in case of a fatigue break. I'm going to take a guess that the stress and vibration of resurfacing the deck caused a fatigue crack to develop in an already stressed area. Without redundancy, the crack spread and collapsed a section of the span. That collapse tranfered a large load onto the adjoining sections which themselves collaped under the increased load. The process repeated until the entire span had collaped. Cracks had been found in 1997 and 1998, but they had been repaired and the bridge retrofitted to reduce the stresses that caused them. This bridge design has been used repeatedly in Minnesota(and elsewhere?), so the results of this investigation could lead to several bridge closings and repairs/retrofits.

source: MN DOT report(2001)(.pdf)

http://media.startribune.com/smedia/2007/0...affiliate.2.pdf

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This TC Sioux fan is OK :lol:

But here is the eerie thing. I live and work south of there....way south of there (work in Bloomington...about 1/2 mile from Sensers :D. But I had to go help someone in St Paul and the easiest way to get to her house is 35W N through Mpls (and across the bridge)...and I crossed that bridge about 6:02ish....a few minutes before it collapsed :silly:

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This TC Sioux fan is OK :lol:

But here is the eerie thing. I live and work south of there....way south of there (work in Bloomington...about 1/2 mile from Sensers :D. But I had to go help someone in St Paul and the easiest way to get to her house is 35W N through Mpls (and across the bridge)...and I crossed that bridge about 6:02ish....a few minutes before it collapsed :silly:

Glad to hear that you made it safely...that is a very close call.

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vibration of resurfacing the deck caused a fatigue crack to develop in an already stressed area.

I'll put my guess down as expansion joint failure.

.

If that expansion joint locked up, both sides of the bridge become pinned and you have members with internal forces that exceed the tolerance of the material.

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