BRIDGE FAILURE

Bridges are vast and heavy structures whose design is complicated and
sophisticated similar to the way it is constructed. It can consume large time
period and a huge investment. Any failure to this will affect the economy in
terms of life safety and wealth.

Failures of bridges have occurred ever since bridge building started thousands
of years ago. A large part of the technical knowledge associated with bridge
engineering today is based on the past failures of bridges. In the past century,
bridge engineers learned substantially from studying historical failures of
bridges. Each bridge failure has its unique features which makes it difficult to
generalize the causes of failures. The factors of Common causes and
mechanisms of some bridge failures around the world are classified as natural
factors (flood, scour, earthquake, landslide, wind, etc.) and human factors
(improper design and construction method, collision, overloading, fire,
corrosion, lack of inspection and maintenance, etc.).

The principal causes of bridge failures are categorized as deficiencies in design,

detailing, construction, maintenance, use of weak materials, and inadequate
consideration of external events. Deficiency in design constitutes errors,
mistakes, oversight, omission, or conceptual flaw that could have taken place
during the design process of the bridge. Detailing is a process between design
and construction periods, in which the details of the structural design are
prepared for their implementation through shop drawings. Design detailing is
commonly performed by the contractors and approved by the engineers.
Changes are often made emphasizing workability and constructability of the
facility.

CAUSES AND MECHANISMS OF BRIDGE FAILURES

1.Natural Phenomenon

Several natural hazards like flood, scour, wind, earthquake, landslide, debris
flow, and storm surge are unavoidable and are among the root causes of failures
of many bridges. A brief summary of causes and mechanisms of bridge failures
due to different natural hazards are summarized in the following sections.
1.1. Earthquake

Earthquakes lead to vertical and horizontal ground motions that can result in
the failure of bridges. The most common damage includes shear-flexural failure
of the bridge pier columns, expansion joint failure, shear key failure, and girder
sliding in the transverse or longitudinal directions due to weak connections
between girders and bearing. In addition, both the vertical and horizontal
ground motions may cause the liquefaction of the soil at the bridge foundations,
which can greatly reduce the load-carrying capacity of the foundations leading
to bridge collapse.

1.2 Wind

Forces and vibrations induced by wind have led to a large number of failures.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster is one of the best examples of bridge
collapses which was triggered by wind. Wind induced aerostatic and
aerodynamic forces are major design challenges in designing bridges, especially
for flexible long-span bridges. Boonyapinyo et al. (1994) categorized the
aerostatic instability into two types according to the modes of static instability,
viz. torsional divergence and lateral-torsional buckling. Aerodynamic vibration
is usually caused by three different types of oscillations viz. flutter, buffeting,
and vortex-induced oscillation .These forces lead to large displacements and
stresses that may exceed the capacity of bridge structures and resulting in the
collapse of bridges .

1.3 Cyclone

In addition to the high pressure due to extreme winds in case of cyclones, the
hydrodynamic forces caused by storm surge resulting from the tropical cyclones
cause severe damages in the bridges in coastal areas. The high transverse wind
speed combined with the surge in the water level resulting from a reduction in
the atmospheric pressure raise the water level to an elevation that is able to
strike the superstructure of bridges along the coast. Based on the several
observed failure modes of bridges due to cyclone, it is obvious that the
connections between the bridge deck and piers play the most important role to
withstand the cyclone induced wave loads.
1.4 Scour

Scour is a phenomenon in which the level of the riverbed becomes lower under
the effect of water erosion, leading to the exposure of bridge foundations. This
happens either because of the increase of flow speed around the river piers or
because of the long time erosion of the riverbed. The scour phenomena depend
on the flow rate, speed, type and condition of the riverbed, width and depth of
the river .With an increase in scour depth, the lateral resistance of the soil
supporting the foundation is significantly reduced, thus increasing the lateral

Fig: Failure of bridge due to scouring.

deflection of the foundation head. Furthermore, when the critical scour depth is
reached, bending or local buckling of the foundation may occur under the
combined effect of the dead load of bridge superstructures, the traffic load
and/or lateral loads.

1.5 Landslide

Landslide occurs mainly due to water saturation, earthquake, or volcanic

eruption, and it may result in the downward and outward movement of slope-
forming materials including rock, soil, artificial fill, or a combination of these
materials . These moving slope-forming materials, when hitting the bridge, may
lead to severe damage or even collapse of the bridge.
2. Manmade factors

In addition to the natural factors, human factors, including imperfect design and
construction method, collision, vehicle overloading, fire, attacks by enemy
forces or terrorists, lack of inspection and maintenance, etc., may also result in
bridge collapses. These factors are discussed in the following sections.

2.1 Design and construction errors

Many bridges have collapsed due to the imperfect design; use of materials with
poor quality Use of an inappropriate construction method have led to bridge
collapses in the construction phase . The choice of material based on location
and environmental factor plays an important role; for example, construction
materials, especially iron and steel are not resistant to weather or other
corrosiveinfluences, unless special measures are adopted. A surprising number
of bridges collapse as they are being built. Unfortunately, some of the deadliest
bridge collapses in history have occurred during the construction of bridges.
While a functional bridge may only have a few vehicles on it when it collapses,
it takes hundreds of workers to build a bridge - all of whom may be in
dangerous positions in case of collapse.

2.2 Overloading

Incorrect assumption of loads is another major cause of collapse. Truck

overloading usually causes fatigue problems in bridge components and can
shorten the service life of bridges. In some extreme cases, the weight of the
overloaded trucks may exceed the load-carrying capacity of the bridge and
directly cause bridge collapse.
2.3 Collision

Collision due to vessel impact causes serious damages to bridges. Several

collapses in bridges initiated by the local component failure resulting from
collision. To account for vehicle collision, the AASHTO (2012) code requires
that the abutments and piers located within a distance of 9.144m to the edge of
roadway shall be designed for an equivalent static force of 2,669 kN, which is
assumed to act in a direction of 0 to 15° to the edge of the pavement in a
horizontal plane, at a distance of 1.542m above the ground.

2.4 Lack of inspection and maintenance

Usually bridges are designed and constructed to serve for a long time, at least
100 years. However, bridges in service are constantly subject to not only dead
and live loads, but also attack by the environment. As a result, bridges
experience progressive deterioration, which, when exceeding a certain threshold
level, can cause serious problems. The deterioration mechanism is influenced by
various factors including material properties, environmental conditions, live
load situation. The risk of bridge deterioration cannot be completely eliminated
however, a good maintenance program including regular inspection and proper
rehabilitation will slow down this process .

2.5 Fire

Fires on bridges are commonly caused by the collision of vehicles such as fuel
tankers or freight trucks and multiple vehicle collisions or construction
accidents . Increase of temperatures (in the range of 800–900°C) within the first
few minutes of fire initiation and then the temperature can rise to 1,000°C or
higher in the first 30 min. The rapid rise in temperature can create large thermal
gradients in the structural members and consequently cause spalling of the
concrete and local buckling of steel members. Moreover, fires can lead to a
significant decrease in the load-carrying capacity of the structural members due
to reduction in the strength and stiffness of materials, which can further lead to
partial or full collapse of bridges.
 Fig: Failure of bridge during service

Fig: Failure of bridge during construction

Fig: Failure of bridge due to buckling of column