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Greg Keller
Prof. E. Grant
UWRT 1103
10 Nov, 2014
How Can Engineers Make Bridges, Tunnels, and Buildings Safer During Disasters?
Bridges, Tunnels and building are structures that billions of people use every
day, but have we ever stoped and wondered are they safe? The short answer is
yes, they are safe. Only in a few occasions where there is outside interference
(human negligence, weather, random occurrences) that the structure becomes
unsafe. People who attempt to fix these problems before they happen are called
engineers. What this means is that engineers study a design of a structure and will
make up hypothetical situations that the structure might have to endure to see if it is
capable of maintaining structural integrity. Engineers design bridges, tunnels and
buildings to be as safe as possible, efficient and reliable to use. Engineers also will
assess a collapse of a structure and will attempt to determine where the fault in the
structure was and how to fix it so that the same thing will not happen again. Three
ways that engineers can make these structures safer are by; studying past
disasters, researching and discovering new materials to use in construction of
bridges and, inventing new designs to use in future building of bridges, tunnels, and
buildings.

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In George Santayanas book Reason In Common Sense, he makes a quote

that has been used and reused many times. "People who do not understand history
are doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana). Engineers believe this and will study
a disaster site to find what had failed to make sure it will not happen again. This
being said there are disasters that do happen, but are few and far between. When a
disaster does happen there are a multitude of people that try to dig through the
wreckage to discover why the structure failed. These engineers will then publish
what they discovered so that other structures will not suffer the same fate. Next are
some examples of disasters that have happened that have changed the design,
materials used, and the safety protocols for buildings, tunnels, and bridges.
On sept 11, 2001 there was a disaster that is considered the largest loss of
American life from an outside source, the attack on the world trade centers. The
world trade center collapse was the worst incident in American history; it did give
some important insight into how to make buildings safer during plane crashes and
fires. The Twin Towers were rated to take a impact of an airplane, which was a
Boeing 707 (the largest airplane at the time), the building wasnt designed to
withstand the structural damage the fire caused. After the plane hit the tower it
dumped 90,000 liters of jet fuel into the skyscraper. While the flame didnt have the
adequate temperature to melt the steel, which is a huge misconception, it did get
hot enough to soften the steel and bend it. According to Thomas Eager the flames
only softened the steel to about a half of its total strength which was still inside the
safety design of the towers. So why did they collapse? Well Eager says that
because the fire was introduced so quickly and was spread out with varying

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temperatures the towers supports were weakened at different levels which caused
a transfer of load which ended in a collapse. (Thomas) The collapse of the towers
was a detrimental blow to Americans, but it did have a positive change in building
safety codes. New codes were introduced, some immediately and some took some
time. The new regulations made buildings have additional stairways that were larger
than previous stairs. It called for a reinforced elevator that could be used for
emergency purposes. Also smaller details like glow-in-the-dark exit signs and radio
amplifiers used in communication were required on newer skyscrapers. Also there
was a change in the standards of materials used in construction. With these
changes engineers are trying to make sure that what happened on Sept 11 never
happens again. (Craven)
In Boston, Massachusetts there is an eight to ten lane underground
expressway that carries traffic through the center of Boston. This expressway is
called the Big Dig and its job was to support the two-hundred thousand commuters
in Boston. The Big Dig replaced the old and worn out Central Artery and was
finished in 1995. This new tunnel had amazing results, CO2 levels had decreased
from the lesser idle time, over wait time was halved and it was extremely more safe
than its predecessor. (M. D. Transportation) But on Monday, July 10 2006, four
three ton reinforced concrete ceiling panels fell on a black suburban killing one
woman. Initial findings found that the reason for the fatal disaster was a failure in
the epoxy-resin that had anchored the bolts that held up the ceiling panels. This
epoxy was used in both the Big Dig tunnels and the Ted Williams immersed tube
tunnel. While the blame was mostly put on the epoxy for the death and damage

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there were multiple reasons some believe the panels fell. Some other reasons that
the ceiling panels fell besides the epoxy was the length of the holes drilled for the
bolts to go into. The holes were drilled shorter than was designed because of the
construction crew didnt want to hit the rebar that was in the reinforced concrete.
Another reason was that the construction crew had used the wrong type of the
epoxy. The epoxy that was supposed to be used had a longer set-up time than the
type that was used. But because of the already behind schedule construction they
opted out for the faster set up type than the original epoxy-resin. This faster set
epoxy could hold the same weight as the standard set time epoxy but had a shorter
strength life than the standard type. This means that the fast set epoxy would
become weaker over time compared to the original epoxy. The final detail that was
overlooked but was found by the inspectors was that the panels in the Big Dig
tunnel was about three times as heavy compared to the ones in the Ted William
immersed tube tunnel. These findings added to the fast set epoxy are what caused
the failure and death of one innocent civilian. While there wasnt too many safely
overhauls that came from the Big Dig collapse one point that was made was the
failure of time management, cost management and construction management. The
Big Dig was estimated to cost near 3 billion dollars in 1983 and was increased to 6
billion in 1990. At the completion of the tunnel it had sucked in 14.6 billion dollars
and took 15 years, which was double what was first estimated. This breakdown in
management had caused the stress of needing to be completed and had caused
some poor choices in construction which could have been avoided with proper

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overseeing. The Big Dig is an example to show future engineers that even the
smallest detail could be the failing point in a structure. (Wallis)
An example of a bridge that had a disaster and changed how future bridges
are built is The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is
also called Galloping Gertie, was extremely notorious for its swaying of the deck of
the bridge. Its deck would bounce back and forth; this is called vertical
oscillation. Vertical Oscillation is when the sides of the deck are going up and down
in a pattern. While other bridges were showing the same movements they werent
as violent as Galloping Gertie. Engineers later installed four hydraulic jacks at the
towers to act as buffers, these buffers would attempt to act as shock absorbers, but
they had no noticeable difference. There was a group of engineers that inspected to
the bridge and told the local paper that the wobble in the bridge was natural and
perfectly safe. On November 7, 1940 an unusually strong wind was blasting Gertie,
causing waves on the deck anywhere from 2 to 5 feet. The odd thing about this
wind was that it wasnt the highest wind speed that Gertie has endured. Throughout
the day multiple people crossed the bridge including a college student that wanted a
thrill ride for only a dime. At 10:00 AM a man named Leonard Coatsworth and his
dog named Tubby drove onto the bridge. 3 min. later the bridge began to do a
motion that had never happened before, it began to twist. This twisting started small
but increased over time to the point where I was tilting at a 45 degree angle and
was 28 feet tall. When the bridge began twisting highway officials closed the bridge
and got all civilians off the bridge. At 11:02 a 600 foot long piece of the bridge fell
into the Puget Sound. After the bridge finally quit twisting the only fatality was

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Coatsworths dog Tubby. (WSDOT) When engineers inspected the remains of the
Tacoma Narrows Bridge they found out that the extreme twisting sheared the
cables and the beams that hold the bridge in the air. The damage to the remains of
the bridge that wasnt at the bottom of the river was so destroyed that it couldnt be
restored. The state of Washington brought together a group of three engineers who
were top ranking. The group found three key points why Gertie, which was the most
advanced bridge of its time, collapsed. The three reasons were as follows, the
bridges excessive flexibility, the drag and lift caused by the deck, and the lack of
aerodynamics the bridge had. The group later published an article that stated that
the bridges major fault was its extreme flexibility. The flexibility of the bridge was
not a problem when it was only in a wave motion. When it began to twist the bridge
went down a destructive road. The article stated that with a larger understanding of
aerodynamics and better design the bridge would not have failed. Ever since the fall
of Tacoma Narrows Bridge, bridges like it have been built with aerodynamics near
the top of the safety list. Each bridge will also be designed to withstand torsion
forces. Also all bridges have to be wind tunnel tested before construction is started.
While the original has fallen there was another design that was created before
Gertie was constructed. When engineers look back at the plans that was the
competitor they discovered that that bridge had a more aerodynamic design that
would have been able to withstand the winds that the original could not.
(Washington)
This shows that while disasters are mostly unavoidable there, when they do
happen they need to be studied and if possible change the way structures are being

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built. Without knowledge of what had happened engineers cannot design structures
to withstand all possible scenarios. With the advancements in technology hopefully
engineers in the future will be able to predict most disasters and will have the ability
to counteract them and make buildings, bridges, and tunnels safer.

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Works Cited
Craven, Jackie. Did 9/11 Change The Way We Build? 2014. 7 11 2014
<http://architecture.about.com/od/structural/a/Did-9-11-Change-The-WayWe-Build.htm>.
Thomas W. Eagar and Christopher Musso . Why Did the World Trade Center
Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation. 2001. 7 11 2014
<http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html>.
Massachusetts Department of Transportation. massDOT. 2004. 9 11 2014
<http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway/thebigdig/projectbackground.aspx
>.
Washington State Department of Transportation. Tacoma Narrows Bridgeconnections. 2005. 8 11 2014
<http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/tnbhistory/connections/connections3.htm>.
Washington State Department of Transportation. Tacoma Narrows Bridge-machine.
2005. 9 11 2014
<http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/TNBhistory/Machine/machine3.htm>.
Wallis, Shani. Tunnel Talk. 9 2006. 9 11 2014 <http://www.tunneltalk.com/SafetySep2006-Ceiling-panel-collapse-in-Boston-Big-Dig-tunnel.php>.