Minnesota bridge noted twice since 2001i.l.cnn.net
Minnesota bridge noted twice since 2001
Made popular 2119 days ago in Opinion
cnn.com — Two reports published since 2001 pointed to structural problems with the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed Wednesday into the Mississippi River, but both reports determined the bridge was safe despite deficiencies.

"The bridge's deck truss system has not experienced fatigue cracking, but it has many poor fatigue details on the main truss and the floor truss system," said a report conducted for the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2001.

Trusses are support mechanisms, and floor trusses often act as the "primary load-carrying members in a bridge superstructure," according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The executive summary of the report - undertaken by the University of Minnesota's Department of Civil Engineering - also points to fatigue problems with the bridge's approach span, the segments that connect the main span of the bridge to land. It attributed the fatigue problems primarily to "unanticipated out-of-plane distortions in the girders."

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Posted by PollM
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What do you attribute the cause of the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis?
Poor Design
2.2%
Terrorism
4.3%
Aging Infrastructure
35%
Lack of investing in America due to the Iraq war
59%
This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.
User Comments
verite
Posted 2120 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
we are becoming over stretched
PollM
Posted 2120 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
We've had the best economic expansion in decades, unfortunately we've wasted all of it on picking fights around the world and never spent a dime on strengthening our home land infrastructure. What a disgrace, the cost Iraq war will me felt for the next 10 years and counting (1 trillion dollars). This is money should have been spent on AMERICA.
noxtwilight
Posted 2090 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
Let's say IGNORED Aging Infrastructure
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