BartSimpson BartSimpson:
$1:
One witness has told local Italian newspaper Il Secolo XIX that the bridge was wobbling this morning before the disaster.
He told the paper: 'I walk the Morandi Bridge almost every day. The bridge often oscillates, for trucks, the tails ... but this morning I had the feeling, maybe just the suggestion, that this oscillation was much more marked than usual.
Sounds like the wind speed from the storm was sufficient to induce a forced resonance and that resulted in aeroelastic flutter that caused the span to flex beyond its specifications.
The thing was built of steel-reinforced concrete so the amount of flex it could withstand was catastrophically limited...much like the Cypress freeway in Oakland, California that failed during the 1989 earthquake.
Maybe.
There was a a storm, and a lightning strike which probably didn't help.
Fact is most of the Italian highways were built in the mid-late 60's.
All the highway bridges were built of reinforced concrete, and they are all now
50 - 60 years old.
That bridge was in especially bad shape.
Fights over maintenance, maintenance delayed, done half assedly, or not at all.
The Italian economy has been crap for 20 years now, and this is partially the result of that.
There have been other 'incidents', but when only 1 or 2 people die,
not much publicity.
This will be another fight for the government with the EU;
to stop sending money to Brussels, and get a major bridge repair program going.
$1:
I just hope the next bridge can withstand Aeroelastic flutter better.
It will take years to fix this, and will make a mess of traffic over large
parts of Northwest Italy for a long time.
CKA Uber 
CKA Moderator 
