FIU Pedestrian Bridge - EOR aftermath 9

[samwise753]

thread815-477378
It's been very quiet regarding what became of the EOR on the FIU Pedestrian Bridge, and the Florida Board finally posted the reckoning.

https://fbpe.org/pate-w-denny/

I figured there'd be a lot of us out there interested, and I was surprised it was so quiet. An interesting read if y'all have the time.

 

[LittleInch]

Had a few too many tonight?

Might want to re read this tomorrow morning....

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[dik]

Hehhehe... I didn't think you could ever have too much Scotch.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Fair call 3 days finished in the SIM has that I need beer effect.

The conversation above was heard from a PhD Geordy civil after working through the night with soil liquidation issues. He had just decided they needed piles in to support the form work...

MBA said not in his budget.

Didnt help he was standing with his suit trousers tucked into his designer wellies with a clip board and green hard hat. And the civil looked like he had been in about digging works in the mud all night.

 

[SWComposites]

On many job sites the MBA jerk would have found himself thrown into the mud.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Well, the turning and walking by "Dr Mud" as he was called by everyone. I suspect was to prevent physical violence, for all of his academic prowess in all things mud, he was 6ft 2 and built like a pro rugby player.

 

[Sym P. le]

As I dug deeper into the WJE report, I was impressed with how much of the collapse senario they got right.

The collapse was triggered by sudden crushing of Member 11 near its base.

Having said that, I still don't think they have a full grasp of the failure, and I'll show why.

WJE does not quibble with the fact that a crack developed between Member 11 and the slab. In fact, they tested their specimen in a cracked condition to estimate the capacity of the connection in the as built condition as compared to a "cracked" as designed condition. The roughened surface won and the uncracked specimen were even stronger.

The estimated actual resistance of the Member 11/12 connection to the as-placed (un-roughened) deck surface is roughly equal to the estimated northward force of 1677 kips at failure.

This is an interesting finding, and is consistent with what I came to believe was the actual condition prior to retensioning. The structure was hanging on, if only by a thread (I am still looking for the transcript or report where it was mentioned that the cracks had not advanced the last day prior to retensioning). What I would like to reconcile is why the studies say the structure should not have collapsed, why it should have been so much stronger, and why the as built performance was so abysmal.

The test specimen prepared for WJE are a close approximation to an "intended" design.

WJE Report, page 32

Unfortunately, although these specimen may simulate a real design, it does not replicate what was designed nor what was constructed. It also fails to account for the effective load redistribution caused by varous connectivity issues. The scaled overlay of the seven foot specimen, indicates that only 62 percent of the Member 11 foot print is available for contact with the slab, while the toe of the foot print extends into Column 12, which even WJE seems to concede did not slip. Should their estimates not account for this?

Construction Plans, B-61 Deck Reinforcement & P.T. - Main Span

Also, the test specimen is blessed with carefully considered and installed rebar. The actual structure was neither designed with such rebar and the placement of what was designed did not help. A reasonably scaled overlay shows the problem. There are no collar ties at the lower end of Member 11 in the same space that WJE included four in three groups. Neither the longitudinal rebar coming down the member, nor the anchoring rebar extending up out of Column 12 are adequately contained, nor were they designed to be. The skewed "U" shaped substitutes just blew off and disappeared as should have been expected.

The Purple outline represents the equivalent location of the WJE test specimen. The Hot Pink outline represents the stub of Member 11 after collapse, scaled from photos with identifying markers such as the electrical outlet and exposed rebar.

With all the extraneous cracks creating a distraction, everyone of record has completely missed the completely inept rebar design and installation in Member 11.

WJE decided that further sliding caused Member 11 to crush. I beg to differ. How about crushing it with a couple of threaded compression rods?

... and his past work checked for the public's safety.

YES!!!

 

[LittleInch]

Don't think they included all the tubes either in the test specimen.

It's the apparent total lack of appreciation that they got loads of things wrong and reacted very badly to the signs of distress in what was essentially an experimental design.

To say there was no safety issue and they didn't need to close the road or add supports is the thing that turned a possible embarrassing failure into a fatal incident.

a
All IMHO of course.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[JStephen]

On the "criminal" issue- my guess, it would be hard to do much with that where you had different experts with conflicting opinions.
I'm kind of surprised at the outcome, though. What DOES it take to get into real trouble?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNoPJqm3DAY

 

[CWB1]

The "real" trouble comes from the courts, not a quasi-voluntary enforcement agency like the board. Ultimately the board may refer a case for prosecution but prosecutors can also go-ahead independently of the board.

 

[Craig_H]

Viewed from afar (Canada), the attitude of "leave it to the courts" gives off the appearance that engineering professionalism in Florida (and beyond?) is dead. If a professional regulator just passes the buck, then they had might as well close up shop and shut down. There's no point in regulating the practice of engineering if blatant & fatal malpractice go un-punished.

 

[samwise753]

Viewed from afar (Canada), the attitude of "leave it to the courts" gives off the appearance that engineering professionalism in Florida (and beyond?) is dead. If a professional regulator just passes the buck, then they had might as well close up shop and shut down. There's no point in regulating the practice of engineering if blatant & fatal malpractice go un-punished.

In the US, the engineering boards do not have the authority to file criminal charges against engineers. They can rule on licensure status based on what an engineer has done under their ethical and professional statutes. Why this EOR was able to settle versus having is licensure revoked, I don't know. The disciplinary document doesn't state. The board was satisfied with his level of cooperation (i.e. disclosure of all that transpired in this event) that they accepted voluntary relinquishment of his license and an agreement to not pursue professional licensure in Florida again.

Also, the District Attorney's office in Miami has not yet decided if they will pursue criminal charges. The crux is whether or not the EOR was criminally negligent. This can be difficult to prove, I would think. It was decades ago, but Jack D. Gillum had his criminal negligence charges dropped. There were far more fatalities in that instance, and it was equally preventable

 

[samwise753]

I'm still surprised WJE stuck their neck out on this one. Their effort is somewhat commendable, but it was only a model of a portion of the bridge segment. A far better, though impractical solution would have been rebuilding the whole thing exactly the same way except including the roughing depth that supposedly would have saved the structure and let it span the same distance as the original. I don't think what they did does much to absolve the design issues, but, still, what stands out more was the inaction of the EOR after he personally viewed the fractured concrete (not cracked; way past that). And remember, the judge had asked for months for the EOR's phone to be submitted. When push came to shove, his phone was turned over after it had been accidentally washed with his pants.

 

[RVAmeche]

Didn't Pate initially try to hide his cell phone from the discovery process and claimed he "accidentally washed it"? Or am I thinking of something else?

 

[Craig_H]

Legalities are one thing, but our profession is founded upon the public's trust in our work. This incident was very much in the public eye, and as such, the public may view this as an example of how the engineering profession is governed. This result leaves me with the impression that there are few consequences to endangering the public in Florida, and I would suspect that the public could be left with a similar impression.

 

[samwise753]

Okay, so what consequences do you want? Even if he didn't settle, the board could still do no more than revoke his license and bar him from practicing in Florida. The whole affair has been highly publicized; the NTSB squarely laid responsibility of the failure on the design engineers. The US FHWA barred both the EOR and Figg from working on federally funded projects for 10 years. Do you want the FBPE to publicly announce their disciplinary decision (i.e. do more than just post it on their website)? It's important to note this event is 4.5 years old. A lot of the public has moved on. I doubt any of the public has been checking in to see what happened to the EOR beyond those in the engineering profession. Also, there were hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements; the public was made well aware of this fact, but this was also a few years ago.

 

[samwise753]

Didn't Pate initially try to hide his cell phone from the discovery process and claimed he "accidentally washed it"? Or am I thinking of something else?

Yes; I mentioned this in one of my posts. We'll never know for certain his motivations for taking so long to turn over his phone, and it is impossible to prove that he had his phone washed on purpose. It's weak sauce though. It reeks of the EOR trying to hide any pictures he took the day he observed the damage and any texts he may have sent.

 

[Craig_H]

Here's an example from my neck of the woods. Note that the $25,000 fine was the maximum permitted by law at the time (limit has since been raised to $100,000 for individuals). This was a somewhat similar situation in that:
- It was a highly public dam failure which damaged a fragile ecosystem and was therefore very well published in the media.
- It took many years for investigations to conclude and for findings of unprofessional conduct to be made.
- The engineer voluntarily gave up his registration as a professional engineer prior to the finding of unprofessional conduct.

https://www.egbc.ca/News/News-Releases/Mount-Polley-Investigation-Concludes-Three-Enginee[/URL]]
A Discipline Hearing Panel found that former engineer Stephen Rice committed several acts of unprofessional conduct in relation to his engineering work at the Mount Polley Mine TSF. The Panel found that Mr. Rice failed to properly fulfill the role of review engineer, demonstrated unprofessional conduct by allowing a junior engineer who had little experience with embankment design (Laura Fidel, P.Eng.) to act as Engineer of Record for the project, failed to ensure sufficient observation and monitoring of the tailings dam, failed to document his review work, and failed to ensure an excavation left unfilled at the toe of the embankment was assessed to determine what impact it may have on the stability of the embankment.

The Panel imposed a $25,000 fine, and Mr. Rice also agreed to pay $107,500 in legal costs to Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Mr. Rice resigned his engineering licence in January 2018 and is no longer permitted to practise professional engineering in British Columbia. Should he ever re-apply for registration, he would face a two-year suspension and would need to comply with remedial and supervisory measures before he could successfully be licensed.

In essence, the regulator made a point of clearly assigning fault and maximum penalties to those who took professional responsibility for the unsafe dam. The same cannot be said of the FIU bridge outcome.

 

[RVAmeche]

Honestly that kind of response seems much more appropriate in my opinion. I get Figg & Co have settled and paid out their money, but I agree with the sentiment that this event seems to beg the question of why there's a professional board if they don't/can't really act on anything. Especially in this case, where outside the defendant's sponsored report exonerating them, all other conclusions point to multiple failings of professional responsibility, it seems very lacking.

 

[samwise753]

I see what you mean. The FBPE does have the authority to fine an individual as they see fit, but only a $5000 administration fine is codified. Not sure how they would arrive at other amounts. I'm not sure why, but the settlement agreement makes no mention of any violations of Florida statutes regarding engineering and professionalism. The FBPE has a separate investigative committee, the Florida Engineers Management Corporation, and the settlement document mentions investigative materials, documents, and report that they put together. As part of the settlement, the EOR had to waive his right to confidentiality to this information, and it is now public record. I assume if one were inclined to get it, they could.

To your point, I don't know why they allowed a settlement (which waived consideration of the case by a Probable Cause Panel) and did not publicly divulge any of the FEMC findings or any fines that may have been levied. The fact that prosecution for criminal negligence is still up in the air may have something to do with that, but I don't know. The public did see that millions in settlements were paid out and that the NTSB found it was major design errors and a failure to acknowledge the severity of the damage on the day of the collapse. I want to believe there's a reason for the FEMC/FBPE sparing the EOR and his former employer their findings, at least for now, but I can't say what.

Also, I'm a PE, but not registered in FL. The information I'm referencing is from the settlement document and the statutes published on the FBPE website.

https://fbpe.org/legal/statutes-and-rules/.

I'm not an expert on their inner workings; I'm just making as much sense of it as I can based on the information.

 

[OSUCivlEng]

My experience in the US has been that State licensing boards are a joke when it comes to enforcement of ethics or disciplining engineers for gross negligence. I have filed two complaints in my career.

The first was against an engineer who stamped the structural drawings for a 3 story office building. He had zero experience let alone ability to design it, he simply stamped the design of someone else. The board investigator said they found some evidence that he designed a bridge or something and it was all okay.

The second complaint was against a engineer for blatantly violating city ordinances regarding storm water runoff. The city drainage manual, codified in the ordinances, clearly stated that any increase in the storm water runoff must be detained, yet there was zero detention. This complaint actually developed into a real investigation, but was ultimately dropped. When I tried to inquire I was informed that all records of the investigation were not subject to open records laws.