On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 11:51:32 -0400, iBoaterer wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 09:53:38 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

A fairly substantial bridge carrying I-95 over a river in Greenwich
collapsed about three decades ago.

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I was over that bridge about an hour before it went down, couldn't
believe my ears when I heard the news in the morning.

That bridge failed more from engineering/design issues than it did
from deterioration. It was only about 30 years old at the time.

Again, those "issues" are usually the result of old bridges being re-
purposed and thus were never engineered to carry the traffic that they
are getting.

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Not in this case. There was an extensive engineering review
conducted and it was concluded that the design was unsuited for that
particular bridge configuration. The span that failed was not
rectangular since the bridge makes a turn, more of a trapezoidal shape
if my memory is correct. That creates an asymetrical rocking motion
as traffic passes over it, and that caused a so called link pin to
fail prematurely. It was always known that the bridge would be
subject to heavy traffic but the span couplings were unsuitable for
the type of unusual loading encountered.