French Bridge collapse

[bothar]

Suspension Bridge collapse, possible case of damage from trucks not respecting weight limit.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... r-old-girl



A suspension bridge collapsed into a river in southwestern France on Monday morning, plunging the vehicles traveling across it into the water below and killing a 15-year-old girl. Several others were seriously injured, and officials believe there could be at least one person still unaccounted for.

The vehicles tumbled into the Tarn river at Mirepoix-sur-Tarn, a small town about 18 miles from Toulouse.

[roadtester]

I just saw this on the German TV news - apparently the bridge dated back to the thirties but was claimed to have been regularly serviced/maintained, most recently in 2017.

[Al__S]

Seems to be a number of similar but not identical bridges along the Tarn- looking at Streetview they have varying restrictions

[KeithW]

Looking at the photos it seems that the towers and main cables are intact but that the either the vertical suspenders or their attachment points failed. The suspenders seem to have been just a steel rod threaded at the end secured by a nut. The saddles which spanned the main suspension cables seem to be mostly missing which suggests it was probably not a deck failure. After 80 years in service either a failure in a single suspender could well have triggered a progressive failure as the other suspenders were overloaded and failed in turn. Cracks in such rods or the saddles (which look to be cast iron) are almost impossible to detect by inspection as any crack would probably be obscured by the nut/saddle assembly. Recovery of them from the river bed should clear up any mystery. Fatigue and stress corrosion cracks produce characteristic damage but recovering them before too much corrosion happens will be critical.

You can see a typical assembly at
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@43.81196 ... authuser=0

[exiled]

I just saw this on the German TV news - apparently the bridge dated back to the thirties but was claimed to have been regularly serviced/maintained, most recently in 2017.

Yup, French media is reporting that the limit is 19T on the bridge. The vehicle in question closer to 45T.