RE: Hammersmith Flyover: more than temporary trouble?
Discussion
robinessex said:
Has anyone but me noticed that new bridges being built on motorways, with steel sections, these days aren't being painted ! South side of the Dartford crossing, A3, M4, and the widening of the north section of the M25. Neither are the steel cassons that retain the soil embankments. I wonder how long these are going to last ?
Some bridges on the A50 have a similar finish. Apparently it's 'Weathering Steel'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steelSuppose it works in a similar manner to way in which the oxide coating protects aluminium.
Doesn't look like it stands up to salt too well!
Edited by Funkateer on Thursday 12th January 12:58
Hellbound said:
Hand all UK road building projects to Japanese companies and use Japanese workers.
They'll knock up a new network in a few minutes.
Agreed!!They'll knock up a new network in a few minutes.
Didn't the Japanese only take a few days to rebuild an entire motorway after last years earthquake and tsunami yet it takes the British authorities months (or even years) to complete much smaller jobs.
We had a flyover here in Bristol as well, was built in the 60s as short term quick fix solution but wasn't demolished until the 90s when someone finally decided to think of an alternative road system!
Edited by fingersprice on Thursday 12th January 13:14
Edited by fingersprice on Thursday 12th January 13:15
Jasper Gilder said:
Ismbard Kingdom Brunel built loads of bridges for railways in the 1800's.They used funny things called bricks and his cronies in civil engineering built some really quite big things - like the Ribblehead viaduct or that massive thing in Stockport. Don't seem to be falling down now and they're a bit older (and probably over engineered) compred to the stuff put up in the 1960's - not just bridges - was that tower block called Ronan Point?
Another great example - Forth railway bridge - all in good shape, Forth road bridge - questions about replacing it.
We are paying the price for the jerry building that Harold Wilson told us would drive the white heat of the technological revolution. Perhaps we should have stoked the boilers just a little longer - or at least employed civil servants who could see beyond the ends of their pencils.
It was well built.Another great example - Forth railway bridge - all in good shape, Forth road bridge - questions about replacing it.
We are paying the price for the jerry building that Harold Wilson told us would drive the white heat of the technological revolution. Perhaps we should have stoked the boilers just a little longer - or at least employed civil servants who could see beyond the ends of their pencils.
If you want to look anywhere then I suggest you look at the cut-price re-waterproofing job that was done by TfL in 2003 under the less than 'sympathetic' Red Kens administration... it was (apparently) done on the cheap and involved removing the original that had lasted 40 years including the winter of '63... two bad winters recently and it doesn't seem to have faired well.
The original coatings were oil based, the new ones water based (Green issues I believe) and were peeling off during application as the degreasing seemed to be less than perfect.
TfL problem.
tTWhat is that puppet of the AA Edmond King doing talking to PH.
For the roads to go to this state is ridiculous especially as the amount of robbery money the government make from roadtax. All they do with it is spend it on stupid anticar measures. Then they become suprised when things like this happen.
For the roads to go to this state is ridiculous especially as the amount of robbery money the government make from roadtax. All they do with it is spend it on stupid anticar measures. Then they become suprised when things like this happen.
soad said:
trunks82 said:
Flyovers?i was too busy staring at jayne mansfield(whoever she is!)
Not just me then, she's easy on the eye. "Despite the “blonde bimbo” image which she fostered in many films and stage shows, Jayne Mansfield said her I.Q. was 163. She also spoke five languages and was a classically trained pianist and violinist. Such intellectual pretensions were inconsequential. Mansfield admitted her public didn’t care about her brains. “They’re more interested in 40-21-35,” she said."
robinessex said:
Has anyone but me noticed that new bridges being built on motorways, with steel sections, these days aren't being painted ! South side of the Dartford crossing, A3, M4, and the widening of the north section of the M25. Neither are the steel cassons that retain the soil embankments. I wonder how long these are going to last ?
100% correct mate.If they polished or painted anything that can rust, most things would last much longer.A technique i use called sand, paint and polish.Even a medium layer of polish or grease adds years to metalworks lifespan.jimxms said:
May be a silly question, but why didn't they use stainless steel?
They are a type of Stainless Steel. But post/pre tension cables have to have certain properties to do the selected task, the steel was the right spec and still is. But due to the properties required to even function as a bridge [which what a flyover is] it must lose other attributes and properties as metal cannot do all the tasks required because some of the tasks like resistance to degradation don't allow the steel to flex sufficiently to allow the bridge to be trafficked.40 years is good, it was likely that if the waterproofing had been a bit earlier with the right material the flyover would have a life of 75 years.
Now if you take traffic into account, these bridges have lasted longer than any Ribble Viaduct, or Roman bridge or any other bridging structure man has made.
TfL spent the money on vanity projects, just like your own local government has done over the years, pedestrianising this and that, putting in cycle routes and a million other things that took from road maintenance budgets.
Pedestrianised your town centre in the last 20 years? That was paid for by the road budget and was another vanity project.
TfL just had more money and bigger [left wing] agendas.
jains15 said:
^^ and ironically cutting back on infrastructure projects which enable the worker bees (you and I poor mugs) to actually get to work to pay for it....
You know thinking about it (tin foil hat mode on) there have been two major bridge upgrades in this area recently, the M4 junction 6 east floyover bridge & A404M bridge over the Railway. Both seemed to replace the bridges like for like and seemed to be started in a hurry. And are both of the same era as Hammersmith flyover. I do now wonder if it's connected to this sort of problem.
The inference being that there is a cover up going on and the authorities know damn well how bad is and how bad it looks...
There was also the A40 viaduct at J1 (Denham) that was re-inforced about 3 years back.You know thinking about it (tin foil hat mode on) there have been two major bridge upgrades in this area recently, the M4 junction 6 east floyover bridge & A404M bridge over the Railway. Both seemed to replace the bridges like for like and seemed to be started in a hurry. And are both of the same era as Hammersmith flyover. I do now wonder if it's connected to this sort of problem.
The inference being that there is a cover up going on and the authorities know damn well how bad is and how bad it looks...
But you know, TFL are only interested in collecting bus and tube fares and installing electric hook up points. I bet they've been raking it in over the last month. I bet they are being deafened by the sound of ringing cash registers.
Al 450 said:
On the plus side, Jayne Mansfield was really quite fit wasn't she?
If i remember correctly, she was killed when the car she was traveling in rear ended a artic, us legislation forced the introduction of a crash bar on the rear of us trucks, same as the ones we have here and they were called 'mansfield bar's ', on the plus side she had cracking tits.Riggers said:
Dogwatch][pedant said:
I know it doesn't make much difference to the outcome but is this 'proper' concrete cancer? I thought that was where the concrete itself started to crumble due to the ingredients reacting over time. [/pedant]
Don't believe it is but a) it looks good in newspaper headlines and b) it, er, looks good in newspaper headlines...The issue here is the reinforcement cables rusting (and therefore expanding), once they corrode past a certain point they no longer have sufficient tensile strenth to hold the structure together with catastrophic results.
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