If you take a cross section through the bridge, you get a U shape. U shapes are not very good at handling twisting (torsion). That's why I think a lopsided load (heavy snow on one side, missing snow on the other where it melted) created a twisting load could well have caused the bridge to buckle.
Not something that I would have thought about at all if I had been the one designing the bridge. And this bridge's orientation of east to west would make it more susceptible to the snow melting on one side than, say, the bridges immediately up and down stream of it.
Mike Sherman
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 04/23/2023 11:15 AM Tim Mulholland <tim@...> wrote:
This was a VERY high snow year. I’m “assuming” (an engineering term [ ;) ]) that the snow load exceeded the design load for the deck. The right beam simply failed and buckled and relieved the stress by dumping the snow.
One of my degrees is in engineering, but P.E. In my case means pseudo-engineer.
Tim
