By Tim Redmond
Nice work by Matier and Ross reporting on cracks in the Bay Bridge welds. I found the comments of Caltrans officials a bit alarming:
After consulting with a structural steel expert from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, Caltrans officials concluded the decks will be safe, and that the earlier problems were the result of strict weld standards that essentially allowed for no cracks. In other words, a few minor cracks are OK.
Okay, I’m not an expert in structural steel fabrication and welding, but my brother is in the construction biz and is an AWS-certified welder. He’s obviously not in Shanghai, and he didn’t look at the panels, but he did tell me one thing:
“A few minor cracks are not okay.”
Welding is about joining two pieces of metal together. If there’s a crack in the weld, “it’s going to lead to more cracks,” he told me. “Structural welds should have no cracks at all.”
Makes sense to me.