Each bridge had been carrying about 45,000 vehicles per day–thus a total of 90,000 vehicles per day. Currently I-55 bridge is carrying 66,000 vehicles per day. So the question is what happened to the other 24,000 vehicles per day.
I expect Memphis residents are cutting or combining a lot of shopping or entertainment trips.
It’s a through arch bridge, not a cable stayed one. The issue they’re pointing out is that there isn’t the “through” part.
TDOT has finished the temporary reinforcement. It will allow repair workers on the bridge. That’s an impressive hunk of steel they bolted on.
Where are you seeing descriptions of the size of the steel? Or are you basing it on the number of bolt holes mentioned in your cite? Or am I missing something?
The pictures lower down in the article show a built-up scab plate totalling ~5" thick, ~6 feet tall, and ~20 feet long. The article isn’t perfectly precise, but it implies they’ll be installing a similar backing plate on the interior surface of that face of the box beam and doing that to all 4 sides of the box beam. So 8 plates total.
So a lot of steel on the scale of a person, but not so much on the scale of a whole bridge. Then again, compared to a more-or-less circumferential crack whose total length is WAG 15 feet and whose span along the beam’s axis is barely 1 foot it’s still a pretty big scab.
I was looking at the photo in that article. It looks thicker than the steel used in the box beam. That’s just my impression. I haven’t seen any specifications.
They’ve already done a lot of work setting up the work platform and installing the temporary reinforcement.
That’s weird. It’s just showing me one photo, showing the crack, and none of the repairs. I checked twice more just to be sure. Annoying.
50 feet long according a district operations engineer.
The article has an embedded photo from Facebook. Here’s a direct link. It will work without using a Facebook login.
Thanks!
Maybe it’s Firefox protecting me against Facebook following me around the web that caused the issue.
Facebook: “You must log in to continue.”
Front and back–click on the charlotteobserver link to see the front while you can see the back below):
Oops, it worked for me. I’m glad an alternate link was posted.
West Memphis posts their bridge updates on Facebook.
Sure would be nice to persuade everybody not make TwitFace the de facto universal walled garden of public content. The web was built as a vendor neutral public space for a reason; a good reason.
“was”
So they are going to to perform ultrasonic testing on other welds on all four 900-foot steel beams tied to the twin arches holding up the suspension portion of the bridge.
Engineers from the adjoining states announced Thursday that they had decided how to fix the fractured bridge, electing to add steel plating around the cracked area. That fix, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, can be completed several weeks sooner than the alternative – replacing the entire 900-foot beam.
The plan calls for installing the 20,000-ton, 4 ft x 8 ft post-tensioned brackets150 ft apart to support eight 3-in. thick rods that can accommodate 3 million lb of stress. Kiewit will then use nearly 3,000 bolts to attach 150-ft long steel plates weighing 53 tons on both sides of the beam.
Fabrication of the materials is currently underway on a priority basis at two plants, Bright said, with delivery to the Arkansas-Tennessee bridge site expected in late June.
Installation will begin immediately and likely take most, if not all, of July.
Average peak travel times recorded last week included 65 minutes to 55 minutes to cross from Arkansas to Tennessee between 9 a.m. and 6 a.m. Traveling the opposite way took between 29 minutes and 25 minutes between noon and 5 p.m., according to the update.
I’m glad they have settled on a approach for a permanent repair.
I guess they plan to reinforce the plates that were just installed? Using the brackets and rods mentioned in the article. Hopefully they’ll post photos of the completed work.
Recent drone footage of the phase 1 repair. He captured some good angles. The crack is still visible on top. I only see bolts on the ends of the new steel.
Looks like they installed a rectangler frame at 1:28 for the bracket in phase 2.
4 min video. You may want to mute your audio. Music is a little annoying.
