Leroy N. Soetoro
2013-05-17 19:47:05 UTC
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-rod-troubles-extend-to-
base-4508623.php#photo-4610861
The base of the new Bay Bridge eastern span's signature tower is secured
by more than 400 high-strength steel rods that were galvanized under
conditions Caltrans barred as putting them at risk of cracking, The
Chronicle has learned.
The tower is the dominant feature of the $6.4 billion eastern span, which
is supposed to open over Labor Day weekend - a schedule that is now up in
the air because of problems with how the tower rods and nearly 2,000 other
steel fasteners were made.
The 525-foot-tall tower has been the central feature of the span since
plans were drawn up in 1998. The landmark survived then-Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's efforts in 2004 to scrap it due to cost and replace it
with a concrete causeway. In recent weeks the scaffolding has gradually
disappeared from around the tower, revealing the structure silhouetted on
the Golden State Warriors' uniforms.
Not visible are the 424 threaded rods - 24 feet long and 3 and 4 inches in
diameter - that are among those Caltrans has belatedly realized are
vulnerable to being invaded by hydrogen that could cause them to become
brittle and crack.
Caltrans can sample many of the 2,306 problematic steel rods on the span
in an effort to determine whether they will hold up. However, it cannot
easily inspect, remove or replace those that sit at the base of the tower
because the mammoth structure was lowered onto them in pieces.
"We are aware of the issue," Caltrans spokesman Will Shuck said of the
tower rods. "These are going to get added scrutiny. We're going to make
100 percent sure they are safe."
In an earthquake, the rods would perform a vital task - countering the
swaying forces on the tower. Caltrans officials say the rods are not being
subjected to a high stress load, which they say reduces the risk they
could crack.
Some outside experts, however, said the way the tower rods were
manufactured makes them vulnerable to minor cracking that could suddenly
worsen in an earthquake.
Problems in long run
"The problem is going to be that, over a long time, you start to see some
cracks," said Russell Kane, an expert on metal embrittlement and corrosion
who owns a consulting firm in Texas. In an earthquake, he said, "you are
going to have some of those pre-existing cracks that are going to grow
like crazy."
"If you have cracks in them, all bets are off," Kane said. "The thing
could be swaying in the wind very quickly."
Like the other problematic steel rods on the eastern span, the ones at the
base of the tower were made to an industry standard known as A354 BD. That
denotes that the steel is of high strength and is allowed to be galvanized
- a process in which the rods are dipped in molten zinc, intended to keep
them from rusting.
But federal and state highway officials have long warned against
galvanizing such high-strength steel and using it on bridges because of
the possibility it will fail.
Galvanizing risk
Galvanizing can seal in hydrogen, which can cause cracking. It can also
make it easier for hydrogen to invade the steel through flaws in the
coating, by way of an electro-chemical reaction.
Caltrans banned such rods from bridges in 2000 because of the chance the
steel could become brittle during the galvanizing process. The agency made
an exception, however, for the A354 BD galvanized rods on the new Bay
Bridge - after instructing manufacturers to remove a step in the
galvanization process in which the metal is pickled in hydrochloric acid
before being dipped in zinc. They hoped that would minimize the risk of
hydrogen invasion.
"Generic specifications are for a run-of-the-mill bridge," Caltrans
Director Malcolm Dougherty explained, "and this bridge is not run-of-the-
mill."
In avoiding the acid baths, Caltrans was following the advice of the
American Society for Testing and Materials, an industry standards group
that establishes specifications.
Failed rods
Already, however, it's clear that Caltrans' precaution was far from
foolproof: In March, 32 of the rods on a seismic-stability structure on
the new eastern span snapped when they were tightened, even though they
had not been subjected to hydrochloric acid.
Experts have speculated the destructive hydrogen could have come from
rainwater that filled the rods' holes after they were installed on the
bridge, although a committee of experts that Caltrans convened reported
last week that unspecified problems during galvanization were the "likely"
source of the contamination.
The rods at the base of the tower, however, were subjected to the acid
baths, according to the company that supplied them in 2006 and 2007.
Caltrans had specified that the rods should not get the acid treatment,
but somehow those instructions never made it to the galvanizer.
Caltrans says it learned about the mistake during an audit it launched
last month into the bridge rods after it became clear there had been
problems in the manufacturing.
Amy Worth, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said
the apparent failure of Caltrans' quality control was alarming.
"We're going to get to the bottom of it," said Worth, whose agency
oversees Caltrans' work on the bridge. "We want to figure out what
happened and then understand what the solution might be."
Big danger
Joseph Nicoletti, a veteran seismic engineer who until recently served on
a Bay Bridge advisory panel for Caltrans, said the potentially at-risk
rods serve a vital purpose - to check the shear forces in a quake.
If they failed, he said, the tower could move horizontally. "That's
something you don't want," he said.
Nicoletti speculated that the pitfalls of using galvanized high-strength
steel were not fully understood by the bridge's designers or Caltrans.
"When you are doing a state-of-the-art job, you are playing with the state
of the art in metallurgy and everything else," he said. "I'm not surprised
something like this came up. Unfortunately, it came up at a bad time, and
at quite a cost."
Records show the 424 tower rods were made by Vulcan Threaded Products in
Alabama, which received the order through the contractor that built the
tower, Kiewit-FCI-Manson joint venture, via two intermediary companies.
Although the bid order that Caltrans issued in 2003 shows the rods were
supposed to be specially galvanized and not subjected to a hydrochloric
acid bath, a Vulcan executive said those instructions never made it to the
company.
"We manufactured a quality product. We manufactured to the specifications
that they asked for," said Alan Logan, operations manager for Vulcan. "It
appears that they full-court-pressed us to get this material to them."
Vulcan sent the rods to be galvanized by a Tennessee company, which
pickled them in hydrochloric acid before dipping them in molten zinc.
No guarantees
Logan said there was no guarantee the rods at the base of the tower won't
crack.
"The problem is that nobody can say that," he said. "You really don't
know."
Caltrans officials say they are trying to assess the vulnerability of the
tower's rods, but pointed out that they have already been inspected and
have been performing satisfactorily. "We're just not ready to make a
decision about them or any of the other rods until we have completed the
metallurgical analysis that is under way," said Caltrans spokesman Shuck.
"If they need further study they're going to get it, because we're
absolutely going to deliver a safe bridge."
But vouching for the rods will not be easy - removing one to be tested
would be all but impossible. They are embedded in concrete that rests atop
pilings driven deep into bedrock.
One approach would be to sample their characteristics and try to assess
which among them might be the most vulnerable to cracking. "You ought to
be able to point to the ones that will be most at risk, and those are the
ones you would have to find a way to reinforce," corrosion expert Kane
said.
The executive director of the transportation commission, Steve Heminger,
was not aware of any unusual quality control issues with the rods from
Vulcan.
Governor optimistic
"You have to examine what are the mechanical properties of those" rods,
Heminger said. "Based on my own experience on this bridge, Caltrans
quality control has been pretty rigorous," he said, adding that he is
especially curious to see what might have gone wrong.
Ultimately, Heminger said, the decision on whether to open the bridge over
Labor Day weekend is likely to be made by elected officials, including
Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown told reporters last week that it was too early to "pull our hair
out" over the bridge problems and that he's optimistic everything will be
OK.
"Don't know if it's a setback," the governor said. "I mean, look, s-
happens."
--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.
Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.
Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.
Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.
Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---
base-4508623.php#photo-4610861
The base of the new Bay Bridge eastern span's signature tower is secured
by more than 400 high-strength steel rods that were galvanized under
conditions Caltrans barred as putting them at risk of cracking, The
Chronicle has learned.
The tower is the dominant feature of the $6.4 billion eastern span, which
is supposed to open over Labor Day weekend - a schedule that is now up in
the air because of problems with how the tower rods and nearly 2,000 other
steel fasteners were made.
The 525-foot-tall tower has been the central feature of the span since
plans were drawn up in 1998. The landmark survived then-Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's efforts in 2004 to scrap it due to cost and replace it
with a concrete causeway. In recent weeks the scaffolding has gradually
disappeared from around the tower, revealing the structure silhouetted on
the Golden State Warriors' uniforms.
Not visible are the 424 threaded rods - 24 feet long and 3 and 4 inches in
diameter - that are among those Caltrans has belatedly realized are
vulnerable to being invaded by hydrogen that could cause them to become
brittle and crack.
Caltrans can sample many of the 2,306 problematic steel rods on the span
in an effort to determine whether they will hold up. However, it cannot
easily inspect, remove or replace those that sit at the base of the tower
because the mammoth structure was lowered onto them in pieces.
"We are aware of the issue," Caltrans spokesman Will Shuck said of the
tower rods. "These are going to get added scrutiny. We're going to make
100 percent sure they are safe."
In an earthquake, the rods would perform a vital task - countering the
swaying forces on the tower. Caltrans officials say the rods are not being
subjected to a high stress load, which they say reduces the risk they
could crack.
Some outside experts, however, said the way the tower rods were
manufactured makes them vulnerable to minor cracking that could suddenly
worsen in an earthquake.
Problems in long run
"The problem is going to be that, over a long time, you start to see some
cracks," said Russell Kane, an expert on metal embrittlement and corrosion
who owns a consulting firm in Texas. In an earthquake, he said, "you are
going to have some of those pre-existing cracks that are going to grow
like crazy."
"If you have cracks in them, all bets are off," Kane said. "The thing
could be swaying in the wind very quickly."
Like the other problematic steel rods on the eastern span, the ones at the
base of the tower were made to an industry standard known as A354 BD. That
denotes that the steel is of high strength and is allowed to be galvanized
- a process in which the rods are dipped in molten zinc, intended to keep
them from rusting.
But federal and state highway officials have long warned against
galvanizing such high-strength steel and using it on bridges because of
the possibility it will fail.
Galvanizing risk
Galvanizing can seal in hydrogen, which can cause cracking. It can also
make it easier for hydrogen to invade the steel through flaws in the
coating, by way of an electro-chemical reaction.
Caltrans banned such rods from bridges in 2000 because of the chance the
steel could become brittle during the galvanizing process. The agency made
an exception, however, for the A354 BD galvanized rods on the new Bay
Bridge - after instructing manufacturers to remove a step in the
galvanization process in which the metal is pickled in hydrochloric acid
before being dipped in zinc. They hoped that would minimize the risk of
hydrogen invasion.
"Generic specifications are for a run-of-the-mill bridge," Caltrans
Director Malcolm Dougherty explained, "and this bridge is not run-of-the-
mill."
In avoiding the acid baths, Caltrans was following the advice of the
American Society for Testing and Materials, an industry standards group
that establishes specifications.
Failed rods
Already, however, it's clear that Caltrans' precaution was far from
foolproof: In March, 32 of the rods on a seismic-stability structure on
the new eastern span snapped when they were tightened, even though they
had not been subjected to hydrochloric acid.
Experts have speculated the destructive hydrogen could have come from
rainwater that filled the rods' holes after they were installed on the
bridge, although a committee of experts that Caltrans convened reported
last week that unspecified problems during galvanization were the "likely"
source of the contamination.
The rods at the base of the tower, however, were subjected to the acid
baths, according to the company that supplied them in 2006 and 2007.
Caltrans had specified that the rods should not get the acid treatment,
but somehow those instructions never made it to the galvanizer.
Caltrans says it learned about the mistake during an audit it launched
last month into the bridge rods after it became clear there had been
problems in the manufacturing.
Amy Worth, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said
the apparent failure of Caltrans' quality control was alarming.
"We're going to get to the bottom of it," said Worth, whose agency
oversees Caltrans' work on the bridge. "We want to figure out what
happened and then understand what the solution might be."
Big danger
Joseph Nicoletti, a veteran seismic engineer who until recently served on
a Bay Bridge advisory panel for Caltrans, said the potentially at-risk
rods serve a vital purpose - to check the shear forces in a quake.
If they failed, he said, the tower could move horizontally. "That's
something you don't want," he said.
Nicoletti speculated that the pitfalls of using galvanized high-strength
steel were not fully understood by the bridge's designers or Caltrans.
"When you are doing a state-of-the-art job, you are playing with the state
of the art in metallurgy and everything else," he said. "I'm not surprised
something like this came up. Unfortunately, it came up at a bad time, and
at quite a cost."
Records show the 424 tower rods were made by Vulcan Threaded Products in
Alabama, which received the order through the contractor that built the
tower, Kiewit-FCI-Manson joint venture, via two intermediary companies.
Although the bid order that Caltrans issued in 2003 shows the rods were
supposed to be specially galvanized and not subjected to a hydrochloric
acid bath, a Vulcan executive said those instructions never made it to the
company.
"We manufactured a quality product. We manufactured to the specifications
that they asked for," said Alan Logan, operations manager for Vulcan. "It
appears that they full-court-pressed us to get this material to them."
Vulcan sent the rods to be galvanized by a Tennessee company, which
pickled them in hydrochloric acid before dipping them in molten zinc.
No guarantees
Logan said there was no guarantee the rods at the base of the tower won't
crack.
"The problem is that nobody can say that," he said. "You really don't
know."
Caltrans officials say they are trying to assess the vulnerability of the
tower's rods, but pointed out that they have already been inspected and
have been performing satisfactorily. "We're just not ready to make a
decision about them or any of the other rods until we have completed the
metallurgical analysis that is under way," said Caltrans spokesman Shuck.
"If they need further study they're going to get it, because we're
absolutely going to deliver a safe bridge."
But vouching for the rods will not be easy - removing one to be tested
would be all but impossible. They are embedded in concrete that rests atop
pilings driven deep into bedrock.
One approach would be to sample their characteristics and try to assess
which among them might be the most vulnerable to cracking. "You ought to
be able to point to the ones that will be most at risk, and those are the
ones you would have to find a way to reinforce," corrosion expert Kane
said.
The executive director of the transportation commission, Steve Heminger,
was not aware of any unusual quality control issues with the rods from
Vulcan.
Governor optimistic
"You have to examine what are the mechanical properties of those" rods,
Heminger said. "Based on my own experience on this bridge, Caltrans
quality control has been pretty rigorous," he said, adding that he is
especially curious to see what might have gone wrong.
Ultimately, Heminger said, the decision on whether to open the bridge over
Labor Day weekend is likely to be made by elected officials, including
Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown told reporters last week that it was too early to "pull our hair
out" over the bridge problems and that he's optimistic everything will be
OK.
"Don't know if it's a setback," the governor said. "I mean, look, s-
happens."
--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.
Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.
Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.
Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.
Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---