Up until 2019, I don’t remember ever hearing or reading about this bridge failure. Though the failure was 50+ years ago, the topics are all still current — and pertinent to our work.
| Date of Failure: | December 15, 1967 |
| Crossing: | Ohio River |
| Locale: | Point Pleasant, WV and Gallipolis, OH |
Design Lessons (to be) Learned:
- Hubris
- Redundancy
- Load factor
- Minimal design
- Overconfidence in new material use
- Eyebar design
- Residual stress
- Fracture toughness
- Temperature related brittle fracture
- Fretting
- Stress corrosion cracking
- Maintenance
- Design loads
- Increase in traffic
Inspection and Maintenance Lessons (to be) Learned:
The Silver Bridge Disaster an excellent, thorough presentation on YouTubehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge
