Permissible working stress or safe working loads for common steel structure Notes
Permissible working stress or safe working loads for common steel structure
Notes:
Permissible working stress or safe working loads for common steel structure
Permissible working stress or safe working loads for common steel structure
A crack on a 80-year-old state highway bridge linking northeast Iowa with Wisconsin is forcing motorists to make 60-mile-long detours, but engineers hope the problem can be quickly repaired.
The two-lane steel truss bridge on Iowa Highway 9 at Lansing was closed to traffic Wednesday after an inspector found an 18-inch crack in a steel beam, said Mitch Dillavou, director of engineering for the Iowa Department of Transportation. He expects repairs to begin Monday and be finished by the end of next week, assuming no additional cracks are discovered.
The road normally carries about 2,000 vehicles daily over the Mississippi River. That includes many Wisconsin residents who travel to Iowa’s Allamakee County for work, shopping, banking and other reasons, said Lansing City Clerk Carolyn Thorsen.
“People are dealing with it OK, but it has cut down traffic quite a bit in our town, and I am sure it has across the river because it is a two-way street,” Thorsen said Thursday.
The nearest bridges on the river are at Prairie du Chien, Wis., and LaCrosse, Wis. Iowans must now drive on detours of 60 miles or more to reach De Soto, Wis., which is normally just a five-mile trip across the bridge from Lansing.
Thorsen’s son, who lives at De Soto, isn’t hindered by the situation, though.
“He has a boat, so he will be over here when he feels like it,” she said.
Dillavou said the repair should be accomplished fairly simply by bolting steel plates onto the cracked beam. But a full inspection of the bridge probably won’t be finished until sometime today, so DOT engineers still don’t know whether they will find more deficiencies.
“If we find more cracks, we will have to step back and re-evaluate,” Dillavou said.
The bridge was constructed in 1931 and has not been targeted for replacement. A feasibility study within the last decade identified repairs and maintenance issues that should permit the structure to remain open indefinitely if it is properly maintained, Dillavou said.
 | Sac Hermes Homme on Monsoon breaks new ground for… |
 | Mr WordPress on Hello world! |
lumensolution 