Found this on Sky News…
news.sky.com/story/girl-15-dies … e-11864384
The BBC have a smaller story on it.
It would appear that the weight limit was ignored.
yourhavingalarf:
Found this on Sky News…news.sky.com/story/girl-15-dies … e-11864384
The BBC have a smaller story on it.
It would appear that the weight limit was ignored.
It doesn’t look like a well used crossing
Euro section has a link from WanderingStar saying the truck was an artic loaded with plant, at 38 ton gross.
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Clear sign showing in that link, and Michelin map shows a 19t limit. French company.
Franglais:
Euro section has a link from WanderingStar saying the truck was an artic loaded with plant, at 38 ton gross.
.
Clear sign showing in that link, and Michelin map shows a 19t limit. French company.
I haven’t seen Wanderings comment yet, will do. In a minute, but just to comment on this thread, listening to this mornings news programmes, it seems that it often happens that a large lgv will use this crossing!
Also, if you look at the picture of the bridge, you’ll see a warning in red, it says, if any of you are wondering what it says:
ONLY ONE POIDS LOURD (goods vehicle) TO BE ON THE BRIDGE AT THE SAME TIME
Still should not have broke though. Overall factor of safety for bridge design is normally around 6 or 7 ish, that’s before anything theoretically starts to actually fail, so one 38t truck is only about 30% of the level at which you might expect failure given the 19t, one truck limit on the sign. I am afraid the guy (or woman) who did the last check is going to be sweating a bit. Been some extreme rain everywhere recently so all sorts of possibilities for non obvious recent deterioration though.
Edit :- Have seen those pictures now and it looks like pure structural failure, as the main cables are still there, as are a lot of the hangers down to the actual bridge deck.
manski:
Still should not have broke though. Overall factor of safety for bridge design is normally around 6 or 7 ish, that’s before anything theoretically starts to actually fail, so one 38t truck is only about 30% of the level at which you might expect failure given the 19t, one truck limit on the sign. I am afraid the guy (or woman) who did the last check is going to be sweating a bit. Been some extreme rain everywhere recently so all sorts of possibilities for non obvious recent deterioration though.
Edit :- Have seen those pictures now and it looks like pure structural failure, as the main cables are still there, as are a lot of the hangers down to the actual bridge deck.
There are a lot of bridges like that in America, the biggest superpower, anyway as long as they can blame a lorry driver who cannot answer back, they should suspend the test engineer from his own bridge.
manski:
Still should not have broke though. Overall factor of safety for bridge design is normally around 6 or 7 ish, that’s before anything theoretically starts to actually fail, so one 38t truck is only about 30% of the level at which you might expect failure given the 19t, one truck limit on the sign. I am afraid the guy (or woman) who did the last check is going to be sweating a bit. Been some extreme rain everywhere recently so all sorts of possibilities for non obvious recent deterioration though.
Edit :- Have seen those pictures now and it looks like pure structural failure, as the main cables are still there, as are a lot of the hangers down to the actual bridge deck.
AFIK the safety factor on a suspension bridge of this type would be around 5. This allows for the dynamic load of the traffic passing over it and explains the reason for the “One truck at a time” rule.
If the truck in question was 38tonnes (and that may only be a guess) but heavy braking plus the other vehicles on the deck might multiply the load considerably. It looks very much as if it was the hanger cables that failed - this is very different from the recent failures in North America.
It’s been reported that the truck was carrying heavy plant and was grossing around
Wait for it
FIFTY TONNES.!!!
On Monday Eric Oget, mayor of Mirepoix-sur-Tarn, suggested warnings about the bridge’s weight restriction - displayed at either side of the crossing - might have been ignored.
There’s a surprise
Home depot of truck involved was Bessieres, just a few kliks away from bridge.
TV showed an animated clip of 6 wheeler rigid loaded with concrete drainage pipes, pulling a low-loader draw-bar loaded with a 360 digger. They mentioned the same figure as Pierrot of 50t.
Unless under a special licence it’d be 5 or more tons over loaded for any road, assuming reports on TV are correct.
It’s not an unusual bridge at all. There are many wide rivers in France with need for long bridges to cross them. Some of the bridges crossing the Rhone are dated from the '30s too.
One bridge I now use had it’s weight limit changed a few years ago: it was 12ton but that was changed to ‘one truck at a time’ a while ago. Being a long span there could, in theory, have been many 12t trucks at the same time, so it makes some sense. When I cross that one, it’s headlights on, middle of the road.
This is what the bridge used to look like . Would you REALLY want to cross the river Tarn with a gross weight of 50T, doesn’t matter where your depot is ffs
google.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
google.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
A bit further along the river is this one
google.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
google.fr/maps/@43.802458,1 … 312!8i6656
No weight restriction but still has the " only one goods vehicle at at a time " sign, but certainly looks stronger
Bressiers is on the other side of the river on the 2nd pic
pierrot 14:
This is what the bridge used to look like . Would you REALLY want to cross the river Tarn with a gross weight of 50T, doesn’t matter where your depot is ffsgoogle.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
google.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
A bit further along the river is this one
google.fr/maps/place/31340+ … 4d1.572305
google.fr/maps/@43.802458,1 … 312!8i6656No weight restriction but still has the " only one goods vehicle at at a time " sign, but certainly looks stronger
Bressiers is on the other side of the river on the 2nd pic
To be honest neither of them looks man enough to me?