As a PE in Florida and someone that has been EOR on major projects like this, I can't point this out enough. Design-Build has its place but when oversight is delegated to a non-qualified party and price eliminates a required Peer Review by a pre-qualified firm on a Category 2 structure...
It shouldn't be too difficult for an engineer to figure out redundant load paths that the NTSB discussed. There were no redundant load paths in this structure resulting in an immediate catastrophic failure when the non-redundant truss member No. 11 was re-stressed and the 11/12 node failed.
And...
I think this hits the nail on the head for the first tragic mistake in this project. I don't think it got near the intentional design effort or professional oversight that it should have gotten. This type of design documentation would have never gotten past first base in a traditional FDOT...
Vance Wiley
I'd be interested in your take on a report uploaded to the NTSB docket here on October 22:
Link
I'm not a structural engineer but it appears to provide the first clear explanation how Figg improperly analyzed the shear load on the 11/12 node and grossly under-estimated the shear...
I joined in order to give a big Thank You to the contributors of these threads!
I'm a highway engineer that has managed and been EOR on large transportation projects in South Florida that also include many with Category 2 structures.
I've been following the discussion and avoided saying anything...
