Pedestrian Bridge Collapse - Florida International University

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Was just about to post this.  They are already reporting several people killed.  Jesus...
Yeah it's pretty saddening and I'm wondering if there are any still trapped in their cars. Also wondering what they will find on the resulting investigation. Would any of our bridge folks know if this was a unique type of ABC? 

 
Yeah it's pretty saddening and I'm wondering if there are any still trapped in their cars. Also wondering what they will find on the resulting investigation. Would any of our bridge folks know if this was a unique type of ABC? 
I'm curious about this as well. Very sad for all involved. Hopefully there is enough investigation into this that the information can help ensure it doesn't happen again. There was a flaw somewhere. Materials, methods, or design.

 
saw a news story this AM that the contractor was tightening the cables on the bridge just before it collapsed? Have built a lot of different ped bridges over the years but have never seen this style.

It looks like there was a large enough median for a center support on the roadway so they could have easily spanned this with a typical concrete girder bridge instead of whatever type bridge this was that was used?  i.e. "the old fashioned way"

180315172049-12-bridge-collapse-0315-exlarge-169.jpg


 
saw a news story this AM that the contractor was tightening the cables on the bridge just before it collapsed? Have built a lot of different ped bridges over the years but have never seen this style.

It looks like there was a large enough median for a center support on the roadway so they could have easily spanned this with a typical concrete girder bridge instead of whatever type bridge this was that was used?  i.e. "the old fashioned way"

180315172049-12-bridge-collapse-0315-exlarge-169.jpg
That's agreeable. Innovation comes at a cost and you NEVER want it to be what happened in this case. That's gotta be a 150 ft span or more. Now, there are a lot of assumption from the viewers perspective at this point, but I was reading on Linkedin earlier and some accusations and finger pointing was just primitive and at this point from what I can see I can only ask why there was stressing going on 5 days after installation.

1.Was the concrete really not at Design Strength before hand which would mean they installed the bridge before design strength was reached? Meaning they miscalculated self weight capacity and completely disregarded shoring? 

2.Did they over stress cables to failure as in it being another possible human error whether it was by equipment discrepancy or overlooking the obvious?

 I kept seeing the white truck crushed in the corner which has a sign that starts with "Structural..." and I couldn't make out the rest of it and kept thinking "what a coincidence for this structural engineering firm to be driving by...", but obviously they were there. Quality control on this bridge or its model is gonna play a big role on these forensics I believe. I've only ever worked on post tension and prestress parking garages so the possible "stay cable system" mentioned in other sites I have no experience with and would be very interested to learn it. The 3d walk through render out there of the bridge made it seem like such a great and cool structure. Everything about it is so sad at this point. 

 
Saw this on the news. Very sad. Hopefully forensics will find out what caused it and it can prevent this same error from happening again.

 
saw a news story this AM that the contractor was tightening the cables on the bridge just before it collapsed? Have built a lot of different ped bridges over the years but have never seen this style.

It looks like there was a large enough median for a center support on the roadway so they could have easily spanned this with a typical concrete girder bridge instead of whatever type bridge this was that was used?  i.e. "the old fashioned way"

Center support may have been left out to maintan sight distances as well as an architectural feature to maintain the modern look of a bridge from the future.  

Based on picture above, even if there was a center support, there may have still been a collapse but possibly not as bad as the failure seems to have occurred on the left side. If it was simply a failure in the middle of the bridge, i would think both ends would have ended up the way the right side did as opposed to the left side having a full failure while the right side just rotated.

 
Saw a news story that said one of the engineers reported a crack in the bridge 3 days prior to the collapse. The news was scant in details as far as where the crack was located though. No matter what the finger pointing will be fierce. 

 
theories abound I'm sure.  Personally, I think it best to wait for the facts.

 
so it looks like it did have some type of off set mid support - doesn't look like that part was not in yet - based on any of the photos? defin none of the cable supports - I wonder if this was just a means and methods of constructing issue?

 
or is the structure on the left side of the photo above the mid span support? I guess that's the canal off the page?

 
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