THE POINT PLEASANT BRIDGE

The point pleasant bridge is the bridge that spanning the Ohio River between Point Pleasant,
West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio. It is also known as the Silver Bridge. It was designed and
built during year 1927 to 1928. Since it was the first eye bar suspension bridge in the United
States, it received so much attention for making engineering history.

After 40 years of service, on December 1967 at 5 p.m., the bridge collapse without warning into
the Ohio River. The collapse occurred about 60 seconds. The side of the Ohio side began to
collapse near the Ohio tower. At the beginning, the first joint of the eyebar west of the Ohio
tower came apart as the outside north bar extending west from that joint failed. As a result of the
separation of the joint and the failure of the eyebar, the Ohio tower fell eastward, inclined
upstream. The collapse continued eastward causing West Virginia tower to fall eastward and
downstream. The middle portion of the center span broke in three parts and turned over
upstream. Out of the 64 persons in 31 vehicles that fell with the bridge, 44 died and two were
never found. There were also 18 survivors, but nine of them were injured.

Investigation of the accident has been made. It indicated that the cause of the collapse is the
failure if a single eyebar, because of small defect which is 2.5mm in depth. The analysis showed
that the bridge was overload because carrying much heavier loads than it had originally been
designed for. The accident is due to small crack that was formed through fretting wear at the
bearing and grew through internal corrosion, which is known as stress corrosion cracking. The
residual stress in the eyebar that was created during construction was responsible for the
accident. After the failure of the lower side, all load was transferred to the other side of eyebar,
and consequently ductile overload led to collapse the entire structure. It is hard to notice the
cracks that could lead to the damage due to the inadequate technology during that time.

Hence, in year 1969, the Silver Memorial Bridge replaced the collapsed bridge.