Bay Bridge news gets worse: Tower rod fails key test

[XemaSab]

Source: SFGate

One of the steel rods anchoring the tower of the new Bay Bridge eastern span has failed a key integrity test, suggesting it became corroded and broke during years when it was soaking in water, The Chronicle has learned.

The test result raises the possibility that hundreds of other rods that have been steeped in water in the bridge’s foundation in recent years are in danger of cracking, which could reduce the stability of the 525-foot-tall tower in a major earthquake.

State officials remained optimistic Thursday that corrosion was not to blame, and stressed that Caltrans isn’t certain of the rod’s condition because workers have not removed the 25-foot-long fastener from its sleeve.

Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the state Transportation Agency, confirmed that the rod had failed what is called a mechanical pull test, in which crews tug on the fastener to see if it moves. If everything is right with the rod, it should stay in place. This rod moved during Wednesday’s test, Lacy said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-news-gets-worse-Tower-rod-fails-key-6250031.php

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The whole article... just...

There. Are. No. Words.

[MrModerate]

1. The contractor on that job is notorious for lowballing jobs . . .

Doing things on the cheap, and then making megabucks on claims and change orders. This was discussed when the contract was awarded and CalTrans assured everybody that they'd manage the job to spec.

[Jesus Malverde]

7. Didn't they get a massive bonus for finishing early.

What a joke.

[MrModerate]

14. Wait a minute . . .

I thought an entirely different company headed up the job, not Fluor (and its JV partner, which I've never heard of).

Fluor is actually quite a good company, in my experience. I've been away from the Bay Area for over 10 years now and haven't been keeping up with the progress of the project, but it was on everyone's minds when I left.

An on-time bonus is not really unusual. The other bonuses (one story said that Caltrans paid bonuses because fighting claims would be too much trouble) sound really, really dodgy.

[XemaSab]

2. From the comments:

I'm not sure how this quote slipped through the comical's "don't call it unsafe" filter, but when an engineer says, as one is quoted here saying,

"all the safety factors have been removed"

what that means in plain English is

"you are done. any unusual event, including a windstorm, puts the bridge at risk of failure."

I think it's the lack of science training for most journalists that let the statement go without clarification by the reporter or removal by the editor - normally they're afraid to say things like that until after the structure fails.

[DJ13]

3. Think of the extra profit we'll make using bolts and rods from China!"

[AZ Progressive]

4. The STUPID cost cutting business philosophy of the past 20-30 years!

I've had ENOUGH of it!!!

[Jesus Malverde]

8. If I remember the rods were sourced in the USA.

Supposedly the contractor order the wrong kind.

[Brother Buzz]

10. I understand the rods were made in USA, too

But the jury may be out on whether the contractor ordered the wrong kind or they weren't made to spec. I seem to remember there were shortcuts on the testing, and everyone involved is pointing fingers, and more then one finger is pointing at Caltrans bureaucrats and engineers.

[Amishman]

17. It sounds like the real issue is the concrete work being done wrong, allowing salt water in

Not sure we can use the 'made in China' blame card on this one. It sounds like the rods were made in the USA, and the concrete pour was by US labor. Does anyone know if the concrete contractor used union labor?

[pasto76]

21. so how is concrete work 'done right' then?

'it was done wrong!' really. How many years have you worked as a mudbug? Oh ok.

newsflash - the concrete is made in a plant. there is an inspector who verifies the slump before any of it can be poured. You did use one word right, 'labor'. the Labor - union or not - pours it. they dont design the interface of steel and concrete. They dont engineer it. They dont make it. they dont test it. They vibe out the air and work the surface to appropriate finish.

Sorry, this fuck up is way above the pay scale of anyone who works with their hands

[Psephos]

27. "way above the pay scale of anyone who works with their hands"

I work with my hands, and I don't much like the implication there.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

30. It reads like the impication is that the problem was in the design phase,

like something done for cost cutting measures and not the fault of the labor. What is wrong with that implication? I don't see the post attacking the competence of the labor. Higher up the pay scale doesn't mean they are smarter or have more integrity.

[Psephos]

33. Actually, it reads like the hands-on people are too dumb to notice there's a problem.

Or more importantly, to intervene when a problem becomes apparent.

Reminds me of the workfloor mindset in Big Three auto plants back in the day. Ask me how I know. And then ask yourself how that worked out.

As an example in contrast, the German system of guild-style worker training and responsibility is superior to the American system. Hands-on people are deeply respected, and not subject to the idiotic class snobbery that prevails here.

It's understood there that the hands-on people have greater impact on quality of product and workmanship, and superior understanding of the material processes and techniques, than the office people. Both groups are seen as having vital contributions to make, based upon their different (but equally complex) flavors of intelligence.

The US military became far more effective starting in the 90s once this same principle was applied to fighting units. Command and control were decentralized, and field guys like sergeants and corporals given much more autonomy to adjust tactics in real time based on superior understanding of problems encountered during engagement. The results were revolutionary.

Those who think in 19th century terms about the blame-the-other-guy relationship between "labor" and "management" are impediments to a vibrant material economy. I'm done with the shallow thinkers who can't learn from real-world economic history what works and what doesn't.

[XemaSab]

23. There were problems with the welding on the Chinese components

but most of the problems are with the American materials and labor.

[Brother Buzz]

25. The rods were suspect before the concrete was even mixed

Dyson Corporation knew of rod problems but the nimrods at Caltrans still signed off on them.

http://abc7news.com/traffic/report-supplier-knew-of-bay-bridge-rod-problems/490171/

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/22/supplier-persuaded-caltrans-to-use-rods-which-cracked-on-new-bay-bridge/

[KeepItReal]

5. How they allowed this bridge to be manufactured in China is beyond me

The California Department of Transportation's decision to save money by hiring a Chinese company that had never built a bridge to build major parts of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was troubling to begin with. A major Sacramento Bee investigation pushes it from troubling to terrifying. The article, by Charles Piller, details how Caltrans management was determined to stick with Chinese contractor ZPMC even as Caltrans inspectors repeatedly caught the company making significant mistakes and failing on quality control measures:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/10/1305808/-California-discovers-hidden-price-tag-of-outsourcing-Bay-Bridge-to-China

[dreamnightwind]

9. +1, great contribution to this discussion

[JDPriestly]

12. Chinese junk. Uggggh.

[damyank913]

18. In my neck of the woods they call this "value engineering".

Those responsible for taking the bids go back to the contractors to re-bid the jobs using materials that "meet specifications" but are cheaper. I hate this shit because the contract officials usually don't have engineering training. The bean counters rule the day.

[Adsos Letter]

6. .

"...crews discovered that the bridge’s lead contractor had done an incomplete grouting and sealing job."

And it's going to cost another $400,000 just to determine how widespread the problem is.

I wonder what kind of penalties that contractor will receive?

[awoke_in_2003]

20. I predict none. nt

[JDPriestly]

11. We need so much infrastructure updating. It isn't funny.

But private investors are not going to do this. We have to have public money and that means higher taxes. There isn't much choice. The profits that are likely to result from that kind of investment just are not enough. And California is pretty sick of bonds that have to be repaid. We kind of learned that we should borrow only what a realistic view of the economy will permit us to repay. Debt is not the answer. But we have to rebuild our infrastructure.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. Depends on your definition of funny.

My, that's a funny smell.
My, that's a funny looking steel bar.
My, that's a funny corroded rod.
My, that's a funny lack of,safety features.

My, that's a funny collapse of a massive bridge.

[Dems to Win]

15. The Bay Bridge has been a microcosm of my doom and gloom about the US for 25 years

The old Bay Bridge partially collapsed, revealing how profoundly unsafe it would be in The Big One, during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Loma Prieta was not a big earthquake, it was just a preview of what will come someday.

Studies and committees and public hearings and environmental studies and more committees and more public hearings for well over a decade to design a new 'world class bridge' and the process comes up with..... a single incredibly tall tower, suspension bridge design. My first glance at the picture in the newspaper and I cried "They are going to build that in earthquake country?"

{Overall, I think Jerry Brown is a pretty good governor and I respect the guy. BUT as Mayor of Oakland he demanded a world class bridge, so photos would be taken that would rival the Golden Gate Bridge that connects SF and Marin. He was a big part of the delay in selecting a design and in the decision to build a bridge totally unsuited for earthquake country.}

The Bay Bridge is an example to me, of too much discussion, too huge a committee, too cumbersome a process, making a very, very poor decision.

The tall, standalone tower will wobble during The Big One. CalTrans assured everyone they could make it safe, with moving parts to compensate for the expected tremor.

It was always going to be the most expensive way possible to build a bridge, a complex and difficult design that required all kinds of safety measures.

Then, I read about fabricating the bridge in China, and sending CalTrans inspectors to China to inspect the work. What a guaranteed disaster.

Such a commentary on our pathetic country -- we cannot even build our own bridges anymore. Put a fork in us, close up shop, put a sign on the door: We.Are.Done.

Finally, 25 years after Loma Prieta, the new bridge opened.

I fully expect the new Bay Bridge to collapse in the next big earthquake.

[MBS]

16. + 100 n/t

[KeepItReal]

19. It's not that we cannot build bridges, we CHOSE NOT TO build the whole thing here

It's fitting that the elevator on the bridge failed immediately with no fix apparently possible.

[Lonusca]

22. I hope when people read this story

they may understand why a great number of people are against High Speed rail in CA.

It's not necessarily HSR itself that's the issue. It's the implementation.

[Throd]

24. +100 billion

[XemaSab]

28. I can think of four serious problems with HSR

1. The cost is terrible.
2. The route is terrible.
3. The execution is going to be terrible.
4. It's not even real high-speed rail.

For that amount of money, the state would be better served extending BART to Santa Rosa, Gilroy, Livermore, Vallejo, and Antioch.

Or putting low-speed rail from Redding to Red Bluff to Chico to Oroville to Yuba City to Sacramento.

Or putting a drive-on train down the Valley so there would be an option other than driving the entire length of the 5 or the 99 to get anywhere.

Or about 10 other transportation projects that people would actually use.

[Lonusca]

29. Agree with every one of those issues

I am personally not in favor of HSR for CA in the least. Complete waste of money when compared to other pressing needs we have here.

[XemaSab]

31. Complete waste of money

And I seriously question who is going to use it.

People going from Fresno to the Bay Area for the weekend. Maybe. Depending on how many trips per day it has.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

32. Isn't Elon Musk behind the HSR project?

From what I have read about his work, I don't think he will take cheap cost cutting measures like a lowest bid contractor.

[Lonusca]

34. He is researching a Hyperloop

different thing

[Politicalboi]

26. Wow!

Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the state Transportation Agency, confirmed that the rod had failed what is called a mechanical pull test, in which crews tug on the fastener to see if it moves

The human pull test. Is that like pulling on a building that has been damaged by an earthquake, and if it doesn't collapse, it's okay.

[Prism]

35. Sounds about right

I'm in awe of the short-sightedness of the Bay Area's transportation issues. From the lack of BART expansion, followed up by the lack of a properly functioning expressway system ("Uh oh, someone sneezed! Everyone slow down. We need to spend the next two hours on 80!&quot Seriously, who designed 580's "Let's have everyone merge at roughly the same time!" system?!

Agh. Hate driving here. And I do drive, because BART only goes that selected East S.F. strip, and I am not dealing with Muni. Also, I'd like to be able to stay out later than 11:30p on weekends.

There's a reason Uber and Lyft took off here. No one wants to deal with this shit.

Every terrible Joanna Kerns disaster movie has resigned me to the reality that I will probably be stuck in traffic on a bridge when the Big One hits. It's fine. I'll adopt a plucky daughter with a puppy. That should see me through.