Canada Has Been Cut In Half!

[Looking4new]

Hey, its only an 18 hr., 1040 mile drive to get to the other side of the river.

IF your vehicle and you meets the US requirements.

 

[MossRoad]

My vehicle does, but I get the stink eye at customs on both sides of the border.... don't know why, either.... :confused3:

 

[Streetcar]

And substandard bolts.

Do you have a link to article on substandard bolts.
Typically bolts at expansion joint are for alignment. Gravity is the force to hold the bridge down

 

[Garandman]

There are three other major cable-stayed bridges in NA. Notably, the 2,100 ft Penobscot Narrows bridge in Maine has been open since 2006, with no problems. The 1,432 ft Zakim Bridge in Boston opened in 2003. The Toledo (OH) Skyway bridge is an 8,800ft bridge open since 2007. All designed and/or engineered in the US.

A high-ranking official with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation says the bolts holding together a section of the new Nipigon Bridge snapped off, causing a portion of the bridge to rise about 60 centimetres.

Gerry Chaput, the ministry's assistant deputy for provincial highways, told CBC News the broken bolts will be subjected to special testing.

"We'll take the bolts that broke, we'll take them into a laboratory. We'll check the grade of the steel," he said.

"We'll try breaking a few of them ourselves to see what load they break under. We'll look at the structure from a computer-modelling perspective to understand what the loads were to determine what might have played a role in causing them to break."

Nipigon River Bridge bolts undergo testing to see why they snapped - Thunder Bay - CBC News

 

[kevin37b]

And I guarantee the engineer / architect will not take the hit on this . It will be the contractor .

 

[jerrybob]

Speaking of bridges................

A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.
The genie said,
'OK. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the fourth time this month and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes, so you can forget about three. You only get one wish.'
The man sat and thought about it for a while and said,
'I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?'
The genie laughed and said, 'That's impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete... how much steel! No, think of another wish.'
The man said OK and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally, he said,
'I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive. So, I wish that I could understand women... know how they feel inside and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment... know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say "nothing"... know how to make them truly happy. .'
The genie said,
'You want that bridge two lanes or four?'

 

[k0ua]

Speaking of bridges................

A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.
The genie said,
'OK. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the fourth time this month and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes, so you can forget about three. You only get one wish.'
The man sat and thought about it for a while and said,
'I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?'
The genie laughed and said, 'That's impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete... how much steel! No, think of another wish.'
The man said OK and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally, he said,
'I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive. So, I wish that I could understand women... know how they feel inside and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment... know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say "nothing"... know how to make them truly happy. .'
The genie said,
'You want that bridge two lanes or four?'

Now that is a good one!:thumbsup:

 

[jel1988]

Couldn't have built a simple concrete and steel bridge, we had to get fancy and build a suspension to save a few dollars on materials and build a light weight structure where it is not needed. Our premier went to have a look at it herself, what could she possibly do? Send the engineering firm (CNC Lavaline Canadian too) and find out what went wrong. The big question is why we only have one land route from east to west in Canada?

 

[MossRoad]

Your Premier went to look at it because your country's ONLY east-west link was severed. If she didn't go, it would be used against her in the future. Look at the U.S. and hurricane and tornado damage. It does NO physical good for the country's leader to visit such disasters. It actually hinders rescue efforts and is a distraction. However, it does PLENTY good to be seen looking like they care, and reassuring people that help is on the way.

 

[Ford850]

This thing is confusing to me. They say the bridge lifted 60cm and shifted to one side, and it was closed. Later articles say they have 1 lane open to cars for now until they can tell if it can handle trucks. Was that lift and shift temporary, and now it's moved back into place?

 

[aczlan]

This thing is confusing to me. They say the bridge lifted 60cm and shifted to one side, and it was closed. Later articles say they have 1 lane open to cars for now until they can tell if it can handle trucks. Was that lift and shift temporary, and now it's moved back into place?

From what I have heard guessed, the cables going to the top were too tight, so when it got cold and the cables tightened lifting the deck up. When a gust of wind came through, it was enough to break the bolts holding the bridge down.

Aaron Z

 

[Ford850]

From what I have heard guessed, the cables going to the top were too tight, so when it got cold and the cables tightened lifting the deck up. When a gust of wind came through, it was enough to break the bolts holding the bridge down.

Aaron Z

I'm talking more about it's state currently, not how it happened. Did it call back into place now? I can't understand how it is partially open if it is shifted off it's base.

 

[aczlan]

I'm talking more about it's state currently, not how it happened. Did it call back into place now? I can't understand how it is partially open if it is shifted off it's base.

They put 110 4800# jersey barriers on one side to weigh it down. That points strongly to the cables being too tight.

(Source: Nipigon River Bridge bolts undergo testing to see why they snapped - Thunder Bay - CBC News )
Also, its on rollers and its designed to move some with frost heaves.

Aaron Z

 

[Egon]

The rollers are to account for expansion/contraction of the bridge.

 

[RobS]

From the pics I've seen, it looks like it lifted and shifted sideways. The expansion joint likely prevents it from just slipping back into place (like a zipper that has been offset). One edge may sit near grade level but the other looks like it was raised up, probably on a piling or something. They may be letting light traffic pass on the lane that is close to grade level. I imagine the weight of a few cars is insignificant to such a bridge but a bridge full of loaded trucks may be something entirely different! No knowledge here, just speculating...

 

[California]

The rollers are to account for expansion/contraction of the bridge.

Sounds similar to the earthquake damage in 1989 at the San Francisco / Oakland Bay Bridge. That bridge didn't break, but rather, during the earthquake the distance from San Francisco to Oakland momentarily increased more than a foot, exceeding the length of one expansion joint. So the upper roadway fell into the lower roadway.

That damage was relatively simple to patch back together. However since this bridge will be the principal escape route from the San Francisco peninsula after the Big One hits, a whole new structure claimed to be far more earthquake tolerant has how replaced that segment of the bridge. As the replacement was completed, problems in the new bridge became apparent similar to your Nipigon Bridge - huge bolts embedded in the columns snapped off deep in the concrete when they bolted down the deck (fix cost $25 million), suspension cables and inaccessible crawlspaces already had unacceptable corrosion, and more. I think the designers/builders/state QC inspectors are still at the finger-pointing stage with no resolution in sight.

I hope your Nipigon Bridge repairs don't go as badly as this!