A question begged by the Minneapolis bridge collapse is whether current inspection practices are adequate or whether unused or underutilized monitoring technology could improve them. Predictably, vendors of such tools think so, although researchers and engineers are more reserved.
Except during load tests, monitoring devices were not installed on the I-35W bridge because “monitoring would have been very difficult given all of the critical locations,” says Daniel L. Dorgan, Minnesota’s chief bridge engineer. He also says engineers were concerned about drilling into truss members and possibly weakening them. Besides, when failure is sudden, monitors are no help, Dorgan says.