The Persistence of Failure

Historic Bridge Collapses

Henry Petroski
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering
Duke University
•

•
 Historic Failures
of Iron and Steel Bridges

• What are the Landmark Cases?

• Do They Reveal a Pattern?
• Can It Predict Future Collapses?
Landmark Bridge Failures

(some still being revisited)

 North British
Railway,
Edinburgh-to-Dund
ee,
ca. late 1870

Chester and
Holyhead
Railway,
Ca. 1845
Dee Bridge Collapse
1847
Collapsed Dee Bridge
Trussed Girder
Revisiting the Dee Bridge Failure

Peter Lewis, Open University, ca. 2004

Tay Bridge Collapse
1879
Tay Bridge, 1879
Tay Bridge, 1879
Dec. 28, 1879
Note smokestacks still standing in Dundee.
In 2002 Peter Lewis digitized 1880 photos
Replacement Tay Bridge (left), 1887
 Bridge Proposed to Cross the Firth of Forth
(Design Abandoned after Tay Bridge Collapse)
Forth Railway Bridge

Human Model, late 1880s

Forth Rail Bridge, 1890
Quebec Bridge Collapse
1907
Quebec Bridge, 1907
(Second) Quebec Bridge, 1917
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse
1940
Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940
Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940
Silver Bridge Collapse
1967
Silver Bridge, 1928
Silver Bridge Collapse
December 15, 1967
Milford Haven Bridge Collapse
1970
Milford Haven
Bridge
June 1970
Cleddau (Milford Haven) Bridge,1975
Westgate
Bridge

October 1970

367-foot span
being lifted
onto piers
 Landmark Bridge Failures
Is there a pattern?
• 1847 - Dee Bridge, trussed girder
• 1879 - Tay Bridge, through truss
• 1907 - Quebec Bridge, cantilever
• 1940 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge, suspension
• 1967 - Silver Bridge, eye-bar suspension
• 1970 - Milford Haven Bridge, box girder
Landmark Bridge Failures Occur
at 30-year Intervals
(Paul Sibley & Alastair Walker, 1977)

• 1847 - Dee Bridge 0

• 1879 - Tay Bridge 32
• 1907 - Quebec Bridge 28
• 1940 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge 33
• 1967 - Silver Bridge 27
• 1970 - Milford Haven Bridge 30
 Why 30 Years?
• Time for a design type to become routine
• Tasked to inexperienced engineers
• Lax oversight by senior engineers
• Design assumptions forgotten or unknown
• Time for an innovation to reach limits
• Range of a model’s validity exceeded
• Time for lessons learned to be forgotten
• Time span of an engineer’s career
• Time frame of institutional memory
Pedestrian Bridges
Passerelle Solferino, 1999
Ironically, innovative designs
can fare better than
supposedly tried-and-true
ones.
Gateshead Millennium Bridge, 2001
The London Millennium Bridge
is a suspension bridge.
 CABLE SAG (ratio of drop to span length)
Typical: 1/8 to 1/12
Millennium Bridge: >1/60

London Millennium Bridge, opened 2000

(closed after 3 days; reopened 2002)
Failure Without Collapse
Landmark Bridge Failures
Continuation of a 30-year Period

• 1847 - Dee Bridge, trussed girder

• 1879 - Tay Bridge, through truss
• 1907 - Quebec Bridge, cantilever
• 1940 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge, suspension
• 1967 - Silver Bridge, eye-bar suspension
• 1970 - Milford Haven Bridge, box girder
• 2000 - London Millennium Bridge, pedestrian
Minneapolis (I-35W) Bridge
Collapse, 2007
Minneapolis
I-35W Bridge

Collapsed
Aug. 1, 2007
Gusset plate
 Replacement Br

St. Anthony Falls B

opened Sept. 18
 Chronology of
Landmark Bridge Failures
• 1847 - Dee Bridge, trussed girder
• 1879 - Tay Bridge, through truss
• 1907 - Quebec Bridge, cantilever
• 1940 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge, suspension
• 1967 - Silver Bridge, eye-bar suspension
• 1970 - Milford Haven Bridge, box girder
• 2000 - London Millennium Bridge, pedestrian
• 2007 - I-35W Minneapolis, deck truss
• 2025 to 2030 ???
 Time Interval (in years)
Between Landmark Bridge Failures
• 1847 - Dee Bridge
• 1879 - Tay Bridge 32 1907 - Quebec
Bridge 28
• 1940 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge 33
• 1967 - Silver Bridge 27
• 1970 - Milford Haven Bridge 30
• 2000 - London Millennium Bridge 30
• 2007 - I-35W Minneapolis 37
• ? 2030 to 2035 - ??? ?
 Cycle of Success and Failure
• Failed bridge type made suspect
• New designs introduced with caution
• Continuing success gives confidence
• Caveats and fears forgotten or ignored
• Technology pushed beyond limits
• Failure provides wake-up call
• Failure analysis and recriminations
• Design changes called for and made
• The pattern repeats
 What Will Be the Next
Landmark Bridge Failure?
(1990s; NASA JSC, 2009)

• Cable-Stayed Bridge?
■ Instability During Construction?
■ Cable Fatigue?
• Precast Concrete Box-Girder Bridge?
■ Unbalanced Cantilever Construction?
■ Post-Tensioning Instability?
 Cable-Stayed Bridges
• Post-War Development in Europe
• Intended for Moderate (<1200-ft) Spans
• Allow for Creative Cable Arrangements
• Tend to be Signature Spans
• Increasingly Longer Spans Built
• Problems with Cable Vibration Persist
• Behavior Incompletely Understood
 A Gallery of
Cable-Stayed Bridges
Sunshine Skyway
Bridge, 1987
1,200 ft
Dames Point Bridge, Jacksonville, Florida
1989, 1,300-ft main span
Alamillo Bridge (Santiago Calatrava), 1992
Pont de Normandie

1995

856 m (2,800 ft)

main span

Michel Virlogeux,
engineer
Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge, Boston
2003; 745-ft main span; 183-ft wide
Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge
 Millau Viaduct, 2004
1,122 ft. longest span
1,104 ft. max pylon height
Cooper River Bridges, Charleston, S.C.

Ravenel Bridge
2005
1,546-ft
main span
Penobscot Narrows Bridge & Observatory
2006, 1,161-ft main span
 Penobscot
Narrows Bridge
& Observatory
 Cycle of Success and Failure
• New designs introduced with caution
• Continuing success promotes confidence
• Caveats and fears forgotten or ignored
• Technology pushed to limits and beyond
• A failure provides a wake-up call
• Failure analysis, recriminations occur
• Design changes called for
• New designs introduced with caution
 From Success to Failure

Henry Petroski
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering
Duke University
 “Those who cannot
remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.”

--George Santayana
Suspension Bridges

Success Through Failure

 Union Chain Bridge
England-Scotland, 1820

450-ft main span

Brighton Chain Pier, ca. 1824 (c. 250-ft. spans)
Brighton Chain Pier, 1837
Menai Suspension Bridge, 1827
(577 ft.)
John Roebling
(1806-1869)
“Storms are unquestionably
the greatest enemies of
suspension bridges.”

--John Roebling
1841
Niagara Gorge Railway Suspension Bridge
1854 (825 ft.)
What made the Niagara Bridge
work for railway traffic?

“Weight, Girders,
Trusses, and Stays”
--John Roebling,
Final Report (1855)
weight, stiffness, stays
 “If your bridge
succeeds, mine is a
magnificent blunder”

--Robert Stephenson
to John Roebling
 British

American
Ohio River Bridge, 1867 (1,057 ft.)
additional steel cables, new truss added, 1890s
Brooklyn Bridge (const. 1869-1883)
Emily Warren
Roebling
(1843-1903)

Washington A.
Roebling
(1837-1926)
Pneumatic caisson, 1870
1883

1,595 ft.
Williamsburg Bridge, 1903 (1,600 ft., no stays)
Manhattan Bridge, 1909 (lightweight, no stays)
Benjamin Franklin Bridge, 1926 (1,750 ft.)
Ambassador Bridge (Detroit), 1929 (1,850 ft.)
George Washington
Bridge

Othmar Ammann

1931

3,500 ft.
lightweight, no truss, no stays (3,500 ft.-span)
GWB with lower deck added (1962)
Golden Gate Bridge,
Golden 1937 (4,200
Gate Bridge, ft.) ft.)
1937 (4200
Thousand Islands Bridge, 1939 (800 ft.)
Deer Isle Bridge, 1939
(1,088 ft.)
c. 1945
Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, 1939 (2,300 ft.)
Note stay cables, stiffening truss (1947)
Stiffening truss added 1947 . . . removed mid-2000s
Tacoma Narrows Bridge, July 1940
2,800 ft., third longest span in the world
Opening day, September 1940
Tacoma Narrows Bridge, November 1940
Literally narrow, shallow, and long (lightweight),
no truss (flexible), no stays (unconstrained)
What made the Niagara Bridge
work for railway traffic?

Weight, Stiffness,
and Stays
 Lessons Learned
(1941 report)

• wind is the enemy of

suspension bridges
• flexible decks are
vulnerable to the wind
“Progress, far from consisting
in change, depends on
retentiveness. . . .
 “Those who cannot
remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.”

--George Santayana