Collapse of Steel Bridges

María Victoria Biezma1 and Frank Schanack2

Abstract: The study concerns bridge collapses focusing on metal structures. It is based on literature and news research, due to the lack
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of extensive compendiums of this unpleasing but important topic. At first, a short overview of the occidental history of metal bridges is
given presenting the historic context for the described incidents. It is followed by a classification of the most common causes of bridge
failure, which include structural and design deficiencies, corrosion, construction and supervision mistakes, accidental overload and impact,
scour, lack of maintenance or inspection, and force majeure. Some significant historic examples are described. Changes and investigations
initiated by the described cases are also mentioned. The work concludes that without the disaster that represents each bridge collapse, we
would have neither the structural behavior knowledge nor the relatively high safety of today.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0887-3828共2007兲21:5共398兲
CE Database subject headings: Collapse; Failures; Bridges, steel.

Introduction 2001兲. In Fig. 1, the writers compiled an overview of the mile-

Today’s world is inconceivable without bridges. Since the begin-
ning of civilization, bridges for roads, canals, walkways, etc.,
have been built. Throughout history, bridge builders have had to
pay dearly for the experience needed: The more challenging the
tasks, the riskier the bridges. Attempting to bridge wider spans, to
utilize new types of structures or to employ new materials always
means to perforate the knowledge proved by calculations. Bridge
collapses show that these knowledge gaps need to be filled with
plenty of experience.
At the time the first iron and steel bridges were being built
there was little knowledge about the special advantages and dis-
advantages of these new materials. Research on steel bridges
often was initiated by dramatic bridge failures or a series of
smaller defects. From an engineer’s point of view, it is easy to
reduce bridge collapses to errors in design or to material flaws.
However, human and economical losses should be reminders of
the importance to study the causes carefully in order to avoid
repetition.
History of Steel Bridges
The occidental history of metal bridges began in 1779 when the
first cast iron bridge was built near Coalbrookdale, U.K. 共Dietrich
1
Professor, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Univ. of
Cantabria, E.T.S.I. Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Avda. de los Castros s/n,
39005 Santander, Spain. E-mail: biezmav@unican.es
2
Dipl.-Ing., Dept. of Structural and Mechanical Engineering, Univ. of
Cantabria, E.T.S.I. Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Avda. de los Castros s/n,
39005 Santander, Spain. E-mail: schanack@yahoo.de
Note. Discussion open until March 1, 2008. Separate discussions must
be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by one
month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing Editor.
The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and possible
publication on May 3, 2006; approved on November 30, 2006. This paper
is part of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Vol. 21,
No. 5, October 1, 2007. ©ASCE, ISSN 0887-3828/2007/5-398–405/
$25.00.
stones in the development of the use of iron and steel in bridge
building.
It can be seen that every introduction of a new material or
construction method began with short span bridges. The bridge at
Coalbrookdale, mentioned before, was the first cast iron arch
bridge and had a span of only 30 m. Twenty years later the South-
wark Bridge, U.K. was built with a span of 73 m and has re-
mained the largest cast iron arch bridge. Only two years after the
first cast iron bridge the first suspension bridge with wrought iron
chains was built. It had a span of only 21.5 m. In 1864 this
construction type permitted the building of the 214 m spanning
Clifton Bridge, U.K.
Another significant advancement was initiated in 1823 with
the construction of the first suspension bridge using parallel wires
as main cables. It had a modest span of only 40 m; today,
this bridge type is being utilized for the design of a bridge
spanning 3,300 m. When looking at Fig. 1 the first appearances of
two more new methods are marked by short spans, one being
the introduction of welding to steel bridge buildings in 1930 and
the second the first major span cable stayed bridge finished in
1957.
Today, steel is one of the main bridge construction materials.
On the right-hand side in Fig. 1 today’s longest spanned bridges
are shown, representing state-of-the-art steel bridge building.
Causes of Bridge Collapse
The successful history of steel bridges was not and is not without
catastrophes 共Preuß 1994兲. Each catastrophe has various causes.
In most cases there is not only one reason for the collapse of a
bridge, but each collapse has a main reason, which can be classi-
fied according to the following criteria:
• Force majeure 共avalanche, flood, earthquake, terrorist attack,
etc.兲;
• Accidental overload and impact;
• Structural and design deficiencies;
• Scour;
• Construction and supervision mistakes; and
• Lack of maintenance and inspection.

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Fig. 1. Histogram of the development of steel use in bridge construction since 1779

In bibliographic research a random selection of 350 cases of course, humans will always be able to destroy their own cre-
bridge collapses from the last 200 years was taken. According to ations. Examples for this collapse cause are not given because
this research and concerning bridges of all materials, a rough they do not especially occur in steel bridges.
estimation of the distribution of these causes can be derived. The
majority of bridge collapses 共65%兲 were caused by force majeure.
Accidental Overload and Impact
This is followed by accidental overload and impact, structural and
design deficiencies and scour, in that order. Less frequently re- It is difficult to estimate the maximum load a bridge will ever
ported principal causes of bridge collapse include construction have to withstand. Apart from the estimated live load that is
and supervision mistakes, as well as lack of maintenance and
inspection. The distribution of the collapse causes apart from
force majeure is shown in Fig. 2.
Force majeure, accidental overload, impact, and scour do not
particularly occur in steel bridges. Therefore the main reasons
for about 80% of the reported bridge collapses are not steel bridge
specific, but independent from the bridge material. The relation
between the frequencies of the remaining collapse causes seems
to be the same in steel bridges as in bridges of all kinds of ma-
terials. In the following, each of the listed collapse reasons is
described and today’s measures to avoid the corresponding de-
fects explained. The examples referred to are described later on.

Force Majeure
Earthquakes, floods, avalanches, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, etc.,
cause serious damage to all affected structures and bridges are no
exception. As the term force majeure indicates, it is impossible to
withstand every natural disaster or violent act. Nature has a cre- Fig. 2. Distribution of bridge collapse causes apart from force
ative power that exceeds human construction abilities. And, of majeure for bridges of all kinds of material

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 specified in the norms and provided with safety factors, there are
accidental load cases. It is known that these cases exist,
but bridges cannot be assessed for all of them considering cost
and the probability of their occurrence. Overloaded vehicles,
prohibited traffic on bridges and strong impacts with the main
structural elements are included in this collapse type. Bridge
members that are prone to accidental impact should be designed
to resist if there is danger of a bridge collapse. The considered
impact load has to be justified with respect to the cost-probability
relation. The difficulty of evaluating a reasonable impact load is
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demonstrated in the example of ship collisions with bridge piers.
Sometimes, the much more expensive alternative, a tunnel, is
chosen to avoid such dangers 共Wittfoht 1972兲. Accidents do not
particularly affect steel bridges, thus in this paper no examples are
given.
Structural and Design Deficiencies
A large number of steel bridges have collapsed due to de-
sign failures. A frequent mistake is the incorrect assumption of
loads. In the 19th Century before design standards existed,
engineers underestimated the load of the new railway traffic,
Mönchenstein 1891. Also examples of extraordinary load cases
exist, as in Nienburg 1825.
An avoidable mistake related to this is the incorrect calculation
of the self-weight, as the person designing and calculating the
bridge is generally the same. Nevertheless, history documents
such failures, Quebec 1907. Modern standards provide safety fac-
tors for all permanent loads, which allow for the later strengthen-
ing or reconstruction of the structure.
The destructive power of the wind was unknown at the time
the first steel bridges were built. In the past the building materials,
stone and wood, did not allow the building of bridges spanning
hundreds of meters with such light, wind prone members. Many
bridges collapsed due to static and / or dynamic wind forces, Firth
of Tay 1879 and Tacoma Narrows 1940. Besides using long term
statistics to reliably estimate the wind force, nowadays wind tun-
nel tests are performed to verify structures that are especially
sensitive to wind forces.
In contrast to most other structures, bridges experience consid-
erable stress variations due to live loads, which cause fatigue
phenomena. This leads to cracks that progress, decreasing the
cross-section area, and finally results in rupture. Such cracks
mainly arise at notches where stress is concentrated. Connection
points represent the primary places of notches, Latchford 2003. At
present there are tables of common steel connections providing a
corresponding stress reduction factor. As bridges are always
unique, the design of their connections used to be so, as well.
Therefore modern methods using finite element method calcula-
tions or model tests are highly recommended where there is a lack
of experience.
A problem light steel structures are especially susceptible to is
instability. Geometric and structural imperfections lead to in-
creased stress in compression members, which easily can be a
multiple of the linear design stress, Melbourne 1970. Bridge
builders were faster than researchers, so investigation of stability
problems was often initiated by bridge failures. A modern method
to avoid these failures is evaluating the real imperfections and
incorporating them in the bridge model that is used for nonlinear
calculations.
Construction materials and especially iron and steel are not
resistant to weather or other corrosive influences. To avoid dete-
rioration before the end of the bridge lifetime, materials must be
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protected. Two frequent mistakes in the design are the increasing
of the exposure to harmful influences, e.g., horizontal surfaces, in
addition to creating areas in the structure that are not accessible.
In such areas neither inspection nor maintenance is possible,
Latchford 2003.
Scour
The majority of collapsed bridges spanning rivers failed due to
scour of their foundations. This happens either because of the
increase of flow speed around the river piers or because of the
long-time erosion of the riverbed. It depends on many variables
such as flow rate, speed, type and condition of the riverbed, width
and depth of the river, among others. To avoid scour it is neces-
sary to perform a hydraulic study to decide on the clearance,
form, and depth of the foundation. In special cases model tests are
suitable. The failure of the bridge foundation due to scour is not a
specific problem of steel bridges and therefore not illustrated by
examples in this paper.
Construction and Supervision Mistakes
A good, carefully compiled project is only half the battle toward
building a good bridge. High standards only lead to the desired
safety if they are obeyed. Unfortunately, in many cases the insuf-
ficient instruction of workers or the willful application of low
value material lead to tragic failures, as in Firth of Tay 1879 and
Demmin 1900. For such reasons bridges often collapse when they
are still in the construction state. The construction supervisor is
always responsible for the proper execution of the plans. Many
historic constructions were completed with a large number of
human losses: St. Gotthardt Tunnel—177, Brooklyn Bridge—27,
Hoover Dam—96, Panama Canal—5,600. Accidents due to
“human errors” during the construction process occur even today.
Nevertheless, the mentioned “old” numbers, nowadays, are aston-
ishing, which proves that the monitoring procedures have pro-
gressed significantly.
Lack of Maintenance and Inspection
A good maintenance program, including regular inspections, en-
ables the continuous awareness of the general conditions of a
bridge and helps to detect potential structural problems that might
lead to a collapse. Further, steel bridges require continuous clean-
ing and painting of the steel elements and connections to control
the corrosion phenomena, which can dangerously reduce their
structural capacity. Each country has established its own rules for
regular and special inspections, for routine maintenance or load
tests, among others. These regulations were tightened every time
it was proven that a bridge collapse was caused by lack of main-
tenance, Pt. Pleasant 1967.
New methods allow the nondestructive interior inspection of
structural parts without the need to dismount them. Periodic in-
spections often enable the discovery of defects early enough to
avoid bridge collapse. The major inhibitor of perfect inspections
and maintenance are the costs. Bridge designers can help to re-
duce them by simplifying access to all parts of the bridge, apply-
ing durable materials and reducing the area exposed to weather
and other corrosive agents.
Examples
The following is a compilation of the collapse examples men-
tioned in the precedent section. A chronological list of the given
examples is presented in Table 1.
 Table 1. Chronological List of the Given Examples
Human
Date Bridge name and place losses Main causes
December 6, 1825 Bridge over the River Saale, Nienburg, Germany 55 Overload
December 28, 1879 Tay Bridge, Firth of Tay, Scotland, U.K. 75 Design deficiencies and construction
and supervision mistakes
June 14, 1891 Railway bridge over the River Birz, Mönchenstein, ⬎70 Structural and design deficiencies
Switzerland
May 15, 1900 Railway bridge over the River Peene, Demmin, Germany 1 Construction and supervision mistakes
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August 29, 1907 First Quebec Bridge, Quebec, Canada 75 Design deficiencies
September 11, 1916 Second Quebec Bridge, Quebec, Canada 13 Structural deficiencies
November 7, 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Tacoma, Wash. None Design deficiencies
December 15, 1967 Silver Bridge Pt. Pleasant, N.J. 46 Construction mistakes and lack
of maintenance or inspection
November 6, 1969 Prater Bridge, Vienna, Austria None Design deficiencies
June 2, 1970 Milford Haven Bridge, Wales, U.K. 4 Design deficiencies
October 15, 1970 West Gate Bridge at Melbourne, Australia 35 Design deficiencies and construction
and supervision mistakes
November 10, 1971 Rhine Bridge at Koblenz, Germany 13 Design deficiencies
August 13, 1973 Bridge over the reservoir at Zeulenroda, G.D.R. 4 Design deficiencies
May 14, 2003 Sgt. Aubrey Cosens V.C. Memorial Bridge None Design deficiencies and lack
over the Montreal River in Latchford, Canada of maintenance and inspection

Nienburg Bridge over the River Saale, Germany
In the early 19th Century, the ferry at Nienburg, Germany over
the River Saale was replaced by an 80 m spanning chain stayed
bridge. The success of chain suspension bridges in England,
France, and the United States was the basis of the design, with the
difference, that the continuous main chains were replaced by ten
chain stays at each of the wooden pylons, as shown in Fig. 3. In
the center of the span shutters where installed to permit the pas-
sage of sailing ships. The wrought iron I bars for the chains were
delivered with cracks that had been painted black by the factory.
However, after rejection, the poor material was replaced before
bridge opening.
The citizens were very pleased with the new 7.60 m wide
bridge. It allowed crossing the river even under not navigable
weather conditions and the toll for sailing ships increased funds.
Therefore, they wanted to thank their duke who had paid for the
bridge. In the evening of December 6, 1825 a parade with torches
and a band crossed the bridge and stopped on one side, from
where the duke’s castle was visible. Children climbed the para-
pets and tried to shake the bridge to the beat of the music. When
about 250 people crowded on one bridge side its anchorage
chains broke and it went down with all the people on it. Fifty five
people died as a result. However, the inquiry board stated that
such an unreasonable load case could not have been foreseen and
discharged the bridge builder.
Firth of Tay Bridge, Scotland
The first railway bridge over the Firth of Tay in Scotland, U.K.
was finished in 1877 and consisted of steel lattice girders resting
on high pillars of cast iron tubes 共ROP 1880兲. Fig. 4 shows the
bridge that was then the longest bridge in the world with 3,264 m
of total length.
On December 28, 1879 a storm arose in the Bay of Tay and
culminated in the evening when a train was crossing the bridge. It
was completely dark outside when the bridge guard noticed that

Fig. 3. Schematic illustration of the chain stayed bridge built over Fig. 4. Firth of Tay Bridge, Scotland, U.K.; central span in the
the River Saale at Nienburg, Germany in 1825 background 共Source: Structurae, ID 50355兲

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 all eight telegraphy lines attached to the bridge had failed. They
had advanced 1 km along the bridge when it abruptly ended. The
central section of almost 1,000 m length had disappeared together
with the whole train. Seventy five people died.
Under the load of the storm and the train crossing the bridge,
one of the pillars buckled and took the continuous bridge girder
with it. The main causes of the collapse were found in the insuf-
ficient assumption of wind forces, the careless execution of
the work and the application of low quality material, the bridge
builder being responsible for all of them. The Tay Bridge disaster
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encourages investigations even today. The consideration of higher
static wind pressure started immediately after it happened.
Birz Bridge at Mönchenstein, Switzerland
In 1875, Gustave Eiffel & Co. built a truss girder railway bridge
over the Birz River in Mönchenstein, Switzerland. It had served
railway traffic for 16 years when it collapsed on July 14, 1891
under the weight of a fully occupied passenger train drawn by two
locomotives. The more than 70 victims and 130 injured made it
the worst railway catastrophe in Switzerland 共ROP 1891兲. The
opinions of the experts regarding the collapse cause ranged from
design and construction errors to overload and rail failures. In-
deed, especially in the case of railway bridges, it was often diffi-
cult to distinguish if the train crashed into bridge members
causing the bridge failure or if the bridge collapse caused the
accident. At any rate, the design of the Birz Bridge complied with
the existing general standards and common practice.
Nevertheless, the accident raised wide discussion and brought
forth changes. Among these, rigorous load tests for new bridges
and permanent inspections of all bridges were established in
Switzerland. The first standard for the construction of bridges was
publicized and the nationalization of the railway began in order
to separate passenger’s safety from the free market economy. The
design of the upper compression chords without wind bracing
was criticized. It requires a cross section, which itself avoids
buckling. Euler’s formula, developed for wooden columns, was
inappropriate for the calculation of steel profiles and had to be
modified. Further, the natural frequency of the upper chords was
investigated and found to correspond to the action of the wheels
on the rails, which supported theories on dynamic magnification
effects.
Railway Bridge at Demmin, Germany
Due to the permanently increasing weight and speed of the rail-
way traffic the truss girder bridge over the River Peene had to be
strengthened. To ensure the passage of trains during reinforce-
ment works, rivets were removed step-by-step and substituted by
pins. Finally, short traffic pauses were used to change or reinforce
the steel beams. The construction company put the chief rigger in
charge of the work without the supervision of an engineer. On
May 15, 1900 the chief rigger opened the bridge for a coming
train when some of the removed rivets had not yet been replaced
by pins. He did not know about the risk involved due to the
missing rivets.
Under the load of the train the beams buckled and the
bridge dropped from the central pier crashing with the locomo-
tive into the river. The locomotive’s crew could save their
own lives by jumping into the water, but the chief rigger was
buried under the rubble and found dead several days later. Several
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Fig. 5. First Quebec Bridge, Quebec, Canada: 共a兲 Unbroken chain of
eye-bars of the top chord; 共b兲 collapsed span 共Source: Canada. Dept.
of Mines and Resources/Library and Archives Canada/C-000451 and
PA-020614兲
claims for damages were filed; courts decided, as is still practice
today, that the supervisors, and not the chief rigger, were fully
responsible.
First Quebec Bridge, Canada
The cantilever bridge over the St. Lawrence River near Quebec
was going to be the longest of its type with a central span of
549 m. When the south truss cantilever was finished and works
on the central beam began, the compression columns of the lower
chord showed slight deviations close to the pier. The consulting
engineer, Theodore Cooper, was informed but, due to his perma-
nent absence, could neither solve the problem nor stop work
progress. On March 29, 1907, shortly before the bridge’s comple-
tion, the lower chord buckled and the whole structure collapsed
within seconds 共see Fig. 5兲. Seventy five men were killed 共ROP
1910; Pearson and Delatte 2006兲.
The investigation on the causes found that after lengthening
the span the self-weight was not recalculated; it was under-
estimated by about 20%. Further, the allowable stress in the
bridge members was unusually high and material tests were
only performed for tension but not for compression members,
ignoring instability problems. The cross sections of compression
members did not provide the necessary moment of inertia. In
addition, errors during the construction, like careless riveting
were found.
The commission’s report concluded that these and other fail-
ures in the calculation and the design destined the bridge for ruin.
As a result of the first Quebec Bridge catastrophe, extensive re-
search of column buckling started.
Second Quebec Bridge, Canada
Several years after the collapse of the first Quebec Bridge during
its construction the works for a new bridge began. The design was
similar to the first, again a cantilever bridge, but all the defects
known from T. Cooper’s project were eliminated and more than
double the amount of steel applied. The central section of 195 m
was prefabricated and shipped to the construction site 共ROP
1917兲.
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Fig. 6. Collapse of the center span of the Second Quebec Bridge,
Quebec, Canada 共Source: A.A. Chesterfield/Library and Archives
Canada/C-003623兲
On September 11, 1916 it was to be lifted by means of a steel
suspension rod system moved by hydraulic jacks. The suspension
rods were fixed to hinges made of cast iron. After lifting the
bridge section about 4 m one of the fixings of the hoisting system
broke and the whole span disappeared in the water. The moment
of the collapse is shown in Fig. 6. Again, 13 lives were lost. The
fracture of one of the cast iron hinges of 1.06 m length was re-
garded as the cause of the collapse. At that time it was known that
a fracture of cast iron hinges is possible. Therefore, the hoisting
system was lacking the necessary redundancy.
First Tacoma Narrows Bridge, USA
A particularly famous example for the collapse of suspension
bridges due to wind is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster of
November 7, 1940. This is certainly due to the excellent docu-
mentation and the exclusively economical loss.
Soon after its inauguration the bridge proved to be very sen-
sible to wind forces and was excited to lateral as well as vertical
vibrations. All efforts to increase the stiffness of the bridge and
avoid oscillations that decreased the usability and safety of the
structure failed. On the mentioned day, exposed to a modest lat-
eral wind of 19 m / s the suspension bridge moved in longitudinal
waves up and down with a twisting deck and eventually the hang-
ers ruptured. Fig. 7 shows the central span of 853 m falling down
and sinking into the Narrows.
Fig. 7. Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Tacoma, Wash.
共Source: Wikipedia, Stillman Fires Collection: Tacoma Fire Dept.兲
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Fig. 8. Schematic illustration of the assembly parts of the 112 m
span that collapsed, West Gate Bridge at Melbourne, Australia
Indeed, the theory of vortices necessary to explain the behav-
ior and collapse of the bridge had already been published by
Kárman in 1912, but had not yet penetrated the bridge engineer-
ing practice. Only research of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge col-
lapse showed how wind turbulences can excite a suspension
bridge according to its natural frequency. Being made aware of
this problem beforehand, all suspension bridges were built with a
very stiff bridge deck to withstand these forces, until it was rec-
ognized that with an appropriate aerodynamic bridge deck it is
possible to reduce the very same forces. Further, wind tunnel tests
became common for structures especially exposed to wind.
Silver Bridge, Pt. Pleasant, USA
The Silver Bridge was built in 1928 and spanned the Ohio River
between Pt. Pleasant and Kananga for 40 years. It was a suspen-
sion bridge whose main cables were composed of two chains
made of eye-bars. At the time of construction this method had
been applied successfully for a 100 years, with the exception that
the chain’s redundancy usually was 6–8 times higher. The “rock-
ing” pylons of the Silver Bridge were hinged to the pier to bal-
ance the movements on the bridge. So, the rupture of one chain
would lead to the immediate overload of the second and to the
rupture of this main cable, which means the loss of the anchorage
of the pylon and the collapse of the whole structure. Unfortu-
nately there was a small casting defect in one of the eye-bars,
which advanced due to fatigue and stress corrosion, leading to the
rupture of one chain and the subsequent collapse on December
25, 1967.
By that time, only dismounting each eye-bar and testing
it would have avoided the catastrophe. After the Silver Bridge
Collapse national inspection standards were established in the
United States which demand periodical inspections of all bridges.
Nowadays, nondestructive test methods help to detect defects, but
cannot substitute a proper design.
West Gate Bridge at Melbourne, Australia
The construction of the West Gate Bridge at Melbourne, with a
total length of 2,582 m, had already lasted two years, when on
October 15, 1970 the 112 m span between pier 11 and 12 fell
45 m down to the ground.
The bridge had a continuous steel box girder which was put
into place in sections, which are shown in Fig. 8. In the men-
tioned span two adjacent sections met with a vertical difference of
9 cm. It was proposed to load the higher side with ten concrete
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Fig. 9. Illustration of the moment before the collapse, Bridge at
Zeulenroda, G.D.R.
blocks of 8 t each. Actually, more blocks were used. The load
caused local buckling of a plate next to a bolted joint of the bridge
girder. Once almost half the bolts of the final joint were finished,
the mentioned buckle was to be straightened.
For that purpose the joint next to the buckle was unbolted.
Suddenly, the buckle advanced to adjacent steel plates. To accom-
plish the task of flattening the buckle and then rejoining the
plates, work continued removing further bolts. A little later, the
whole span of 2,000 t of steel collapsed.
Around that time several bridge accidents caused by the same
failure behavior took place 共Vienna, 1969; Milford Haven, 1970;
Koblenz, 1971; Zeulenroda, 1973兲. It was the time when the first
steel box girder bridges were constructed in cantilever. Fig. 9
presents this erection method, which leads to higher strains during
construction than in the finished bridge. At that time science did
not provide sufficient knowledge about plate buckling, so design
standards were nonconservative. Due to these bridge collapses
thorough investigations, both theoretical and experimental, were
performed and the definition of plate buckling safety was changed
in the standards.
Sgt. Aubrey Cosens V.C. Memorial Bridge, Latchford,
Canada
The Latchford Bridge over the Montreal River was a steel tied
arch bridge with a concrete deck. It had a span of 110 m and 12
vertical hangers in each arch plane, which had a thread upper end
and were connected to the arch with two nuts each. 共Bagnariol
2003兲
On January 14, 2003, when a truck crossed the bridge,
the northeast part of the bridge deck settled about 2 m. As the
evident cause of the partial collapse, three hangers were found
to be broken. Investigation showed that a minor defect of one
of the hangers’ threads combined with the seized hanger hinge led
to previous fatigue rupture of the first hanger at its upper con-
nection as shown in Fig. 10. From then on the adjacent hanger
had to carry double the load and likewise broke some years later
due to fatigue strains at the same point. The third hanger, hence-
forth radically overloaded, eventually ruptured when the truck
entered the bridge on this especially cold day. Later it was found
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Fig. 10. Upper hanger connection of Latchford Bridge, Latchford,
Canada
that the ductility of the steel was improper for the cold environ-
ment of the bridge, which favors brittle fracture.
The fracture of the first two hangers could not be discovered
by bridge inspections because their upper connection was hidden
inside the steel box cross section of the arch.
Conclusions
The collapse of bridges is always an unfortunate incident because
of the loss of human life and also economical losses; however, it
is an integral part of the history and the development of bridges.
The relatively high safety that we enjoy today could not have
been established without these terrible accidents. On one hand
many effects on the structural behavior were unknown before and
could therefore not be investigated. On the other hand, even
though calculation methods are well developed and model and
material tests exact, it is still to be proven that the finished struc-
tures behave according to the predictions.
Most defects or collapses of bridges occur independently from
the construction material: Force majeure 共65%兲, accidental over-
load and impact 共12%兲, and scour 共9%兲. Concerning the other
three collapse causes, which are structural and design deficiencies
共9%兲, construction and supervision mistakes 共3.5%兲, and lack of
maintenance 共1.5%兲, steel bridges show particular risks for fail-
ures like, e.g., column and plate buckling, fatigue, brittle fracture
at low temperature, and corrosion. Only when these problems are
respected is it possible to make use of the great advantages, like
high strength and weld-ability, and build outstanding, durable
bridges.
Modern standards contain strict rules helping to avoid the de-
scribed failures. Nevertheless, recent examples of collapsed
bridges prove that standards alone are not sufficient, as the design
and the construction of each bridge are unique. Therefore, it
seems advisable to benefit from the experience of documented
defects and collapses of bridges and to avoid the need for further
bridge collapses to prove to us our lack of knowledge.
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