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Re: methods to restore service at Sims CA
Author: Ed Workman
Date: 04-28-2017 - 08:53
The end strut of the truss is gone.
So what holds the bridge up?
From a designer's point of view, way back then, removal of the end strut would destroy the bridge. Perhaps an extremely sophisticated finite element analysis, or three , is being done as we ponder
As it stands it is akin to a pile of jackstraws in a house of cards- moving one piece could easily drop all.
IF machinery could be moved to an appropriate point, the present relay boxes, signals etc can be quickly removed and replaced.
The original bridge dwgs and pix, or of an adjacent SP bridge can be found online at Library of Congress in The HAER collection- pretty sure IIRC it's the Sims bridge.
Weldments could easily and quickly be fabricated to replace the rivetted original missing pieces, perhaps they are well on their way to completion already.
If they asked me, and they won't, how to do it, I'd crib under the trusses down to the riverbed- ignoring all envirocrazies. Even if I could get a pile driver down there,
I'd fear the vibrations might break the thread that is holding it .
A concrete box deck girder would be better, but would require new abutments and maybe a pier in the river .
I defer to Webdigger to find the HAER page, and hope that more drone views will keep us up to date
So what holds the bridge up?
From a designer's point of view, way back then, removal of the end strut would destroy the bridge. Perhaps an extremely sophisticated finite element analysis, or three , is being done as we ponder
As it stands it is akin to a pile of jackstraws in a house of cards- moving one piece could easily drop all.
IF machinery could be moved to an appropriate point, the present relay boxes, signals etc can be quickly removed and replaced.
The original bridge dwgs and pix, or of an adjacent SP bridge can be found online at Library of Congress in The HAER collection- pretty sure IIRC it's the Sims bridge.
Weldments could easily and quickly be fabricated to replace the rivetted original missing pieces, perhaps they are well on their way to completion already.
If they asked me, and they won't, how to do it, I'd crib under the trusses down to the riverbed- ignoring all envirocrazies. Even if I could get a pile driver down there,
I'd fear the vibrations might break the thread that is holding it .
A concrete box deck girder would be better, but would require new abutments and maybe a pier in the river .
I defer to Webdigger to find the HAER page, and hope that more drone views will keep us up to date
