Bridge disaster in Italy

They don't build them like they used to back in the Roman days
Apparently "maintenance" is not a popular pastime when it comes to infrastructure in Italy
It will be interesting to see how much cement was in the concrete

What could have caused Genoa bridge to collapse

8:11am Aug 15, 2018




It came seemingly without warning, and has left a shocked and devastated nation demanding answers.
Now officials are scrambling to find out how Genoa’s Morandi Bridge collapsed overnight killing at least 26 people as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte called it "an immense tragedy ... inconceivable in a modern system like ours, a modern country."

READ MORE: Dozens dead in Italian bridge collapse disaster
IN PICTURES: Desperate hunt for survivors
What caused the bridge to collapse is now the subject of an urgent investigation. (AP/AAP)
The disaster, on a major interchange connecting Genoa and other northern cities with beaches in eastern Liguria into France, focused attention on Italy's aging infrastructure, particularly its concrete bridges and viaducts built in the postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s.
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said the collapse was "unacceptable" and that if negligence played a role "whoever made a mistake must pay."
Rescue workers lift a person out of the rubble of the collapsed bridge. (AP/AAP)Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli says whoever is responsible for the collapse "must pay". (Supplied)
Early speculation focused on the structural weakness of the span. At least 30 cars and three heavy vehicles were on the 80m section of the span that collapsed during torrential rain.
The Italian CNR civil engineering society said that structures dating from when the Morandi Bridge was built had surpassed their lifespan. It called for a "Marshall Plan" to repair or replace tens of thousands of bridges and viaducts built in the 1950s and 1960s. Updating and reinforcing the bridges would be more expensive than destroying and rebuilding them with technology that could last a century.
They cited previous accidents: a bridge that fell in April 2017 in the northern province of Cuneo, crushing a carabinieri police car after the officers and driver had barely managed to get away in time; and an overpass that in the northern city of Lecco that collapsed under exceptional weight, crushing a car and killing the driver.
The design of the bridge has been criticised in the past. Antonio Brencich, a professor specialising in reinforced concrete construction at the University of Genoa, called the span "a failure of engineering" in an interview in 2016.




"That bridge is wrong. Sooner or later it will have to be replaced. I do not know when. But there will be a time when the cost of maintenance will be higher than a replacement," he told Italian media Primocanale.
Other engineers said corrosion or weather conditions could have contributed.
"As this reinforced and pre-stressed concrete bridge has been there for 50 years, it is possible that corrosion of tendons or reinforcement may be a contributory factor," said Ian Firth, former president of The Institution of Structural Engineers, a London-based international network. He called the bridge "an unusual design."
At least 26 people have been killed in the tragedy. (AP/AAP)
Mehdi Kashani, an associate professor in structural mechanics at the University of Southampton in the UK, said maintenance issues and pressure from "dynamic loads," such as traffic and wind, could have resulted in "fatigue damage in bridge components."
Borrelli said highway engineers were checking other parts of the bridge and that some areas were evacuated as a precaution.
"You can see there are very big portions of the bridge (that collapsed). We need to remove all of the rubble to ascertain that all of the people have been reached," he said.
The transport minister, Toninelli, said the company that has the concession to operate that section of highway said its maintenance on the bridge was up to date and no work was being done at the time of the collapse. But he added that they were about to launch a A$31 million bidding process for significant safety work on the bridge.
"There has not been sufficient maintenance and checks, and safety work for many bridges and viaducts and bridges in Italy constructed — almost all — during the 1960s," he said.
With AP.

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