Johns Hopkins Engineers Begin Urgent Assessment Of Major U.S. Bridges Close To Key Ports

The US National Transportation and Safety Board — the agency examining the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge — has urged the bridge owners in the US to act swiftly in safeguarding their assets from a similar incident.

The engineers associated with Johns Hopkins University and a group of students are embarking on an urgent assessment of the country’s bridges, especially the ones close to key ports of entry.

A massive container vessel, the Dali, lost its power on March 26 and slammed into the Key Bridge, entirely knocking it down and taking the lives of six construction employees.

Since then, relevant authorities have rushed to clear the blocked shipping channel and initiate rebuilding of the bridge.

It is understood to be finished by 2028. But other bridges could be at risk.

Massive vessels, often weighing over 100,000 tons, sail under bridges frequently while on their way to the ports in the US.

Thousands of vessels have transited under the Key Bridge, and it took unusual circumstances for the Dali to strike one of the bridge’s key support columns.

It lost power at the wrong time, triggering the unexpected collapse.

However, engineers associated with Hopkins reportedly hypothesize that the risk of the Key Bridge catastrophe has been “underestimated” and that the probability of a similar case is higher than what is currently presumed, per a news release.

It is crucial to know right now, not five years or a decade from now, if there’s an outsize risk to the bridges across the nation so that crucial investments — which might take years — can start immediately if needed, Michael Shields, the Hopkins engineer heading the group, mentioned in a statement.

The Key Bridge incident served as a wake-up call.

The engineers and students will study the probability of a cargo vessel’s size of the Dali diverting from the path and colliding with the Key Bridge and the odds of such collisions at other vital bridges.

A National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research grant will help fund this study.

It will take a year, but the team expects to share the preliminary results this summer.

When the Key Bridge was designed and built in the 1970s, the nation’s bridge code—constructed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials—didn’t have guidelines for preventing vessel collisions.

The specifications had been added during the 1990s, but the existing bridges, such as the Key and Bay Bridges, did not need to be retrofitted to meet the new standards.

Last week, specialists met at College Park for a roundtable conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the engineering department of the University of Maryland.

Some suggested that the bridge code could be revised due to the Key Bridge’s collapse.

The Hopkins study can be relevant to potential changes considered.

In the statement, Hopkins engineer Ben Schafer said that the group’s findings will be critical in reassessing and redefining safety standards for transportation infrastructure.

Reference: Engineering jhu

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