sci.research.careers

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 07:59:16 -0400, T. Keating
wrote:

>On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:44:23 -0400, Straydog wrote:
>
>>
>>Todays Wilmington DE paper.
>>
>>First time I'm seeing aerial photos of that thing. Say, that whole damned
>>thing collapsed!!! All of it!! Gotta be couple hundred feet long!!!
>
>The main span was 458 ft in length.
>
>From the pictures, it looks like the contractor who was refurbishing
>the bridge added close to ~700 tons of extra concrete to the 50 year
>old main span.

I'm updating my numbers, it's even worse than I thought originally.
Those bozos added an extra 1000+ tons of deadweight to the main
span..

>
>~200 tons in a double row of Jersey Barriers down the center lane.
^^^^^^^^
More like ~350 tons.. A recent cnn photo reveals a double row of
concrete filled cement blocks installed on top of those Jersey
Barriers !!!

>~200 tons in freshly poured (& higher) solid guard rails.
^^^^^
More like 400+ tons.. Another photo indicates that the new side
barriers are at least 10" thick at the top and 4ft high..

>
>The new concrete lanes(4 out of 8) appear to be a couple of inches
>thicker than the asphalt pavement in the adjacent lanes. Adding
>another 300 tons, (maybe more).
>
>Add in packed stop & go traffic, some heavy equipment staged by
>contractor, and a train passing underneath (vibration) to finish the
>job.
>
>I'm not surprised that the bridge collapsed.