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Mexico City metro overpass collapses onto road; 23 dead

11 Comments
By E EDUARDO CASTILLO

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Time for a major investment in fixing infrastructure.

Looking at the Olivos station on Google Maps, the main vertical structural system would appear to be steel plate girders, with precast concrete planks running transverse to the main span direction to create a platform for the railway to be constructed.

Steel does not normally fail this suddenly when designed properly; it is meant to fail slowly if it is loaded or designed inadequately, such that the failure of the system is progressive and noticeable to inspectors. The phrase "ductile failure" is a key component of modern structural engineering. It will be interesting to follow the investigation of this collapse to see what happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/04/mexico-city-overpass-collapse-metro-train-carriages?via=webuproar

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Tragic. We hope ALL friends and family are safe.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Oh boy what a mess, I hope that the death toll does not rise any more, there are one or two concerns about its strength after an earth quake, there should be a team of structural engineers on hand to inspect the structure after such an event. I just hope its not down to some one skimping on materials in the first place. if it is found out they have skimped on materials, well the company or indeviduals should, need to held accountable for there actions.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

¡Ay, caramba!

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

Terrible , guess some big questions need to be asked about city hall , the construction company and the methods of payment and who is living in big houses.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Time for a major investment in fixing infrastructure.

That is the Mexico City's Metro newest line. It was built somewhere in the 2006-2012 time frame.

Steel does not normally fail this suddenly when designed properly; it is meant to fail slowly if it is loaded or designed inadequately,

The steel truss I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, the Morandi Bridge entering Genoa, the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River at Point Pleasant WV just to name a few off the top of my head were instances of bridges collapsing suddenly with no warning.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

mediocre infrastructure in the third world.

This might surprise you but Mexico is an OECD member and among the more highly developed nations in the world. Mexico has the 15th largest economy, sandwiched between Australia at no 14 and Turkey at no16.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Terrible , guess some big questions need to be asked about city hall , the construction company and the methods of payment and who is living in big houses.

The construction quality has been openly questioned since the line was built.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Look at Google Maps, type in "Mexico City Olivos Station" Zoom in to the station then select Street View. From street view look up at the bridge the train line runs on. Really lightly built. Only two parallel beams carrying all the weight of two train lines and the concrete deck sections. Zoom in the places where the beams sit on the concrete piers and you can see only half the width of the beam is attached to the pier. The bottom of the beam is unsupported, no way for stress in the bottom of the beam to be transmitted the support columns. I bet the whole line ends up having to be rebuilt.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@DT, ive just had a look at the underneath of the station, I confess that I am no structural engineer, but these "I" beems dont look strong enough, although they look about 6' or 1.8 deep my concern would be the load need to be spread out, so may be youl need 4 "I" beams, then we take into consideration all of the super structure above, pluss trains, etc, and then youl need to factor in earth tremors, wind. I really dont think it was built strongly enough to last.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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