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[quote user="rjemery"] [quote user="Bucyrus"]I am not demanding a quick answer.  I just want to know how, yesterday, they concluded that the gussets may be flawed in their design.  I would have thought they could not have made that suggestion without some FEA analysis.  They laid it on the table, not me.[/quote]Read the NTSB press releases.  I don't see therein any "conclusion" about flawed gussets.  I think you are citing what the media reported (or mis-reported), not what the NTSB said.[/quote]No, I am citing what the NTSB said, but let me clarify what I am saying.  It is true that the NTSB did not conclude that the plates were the cause, but I did not say they did.  What I said was:  "I just want to know how, yesterday [8/8/07], they concluded that the gussets may be flawed in their design."  If they have enough evidence to publicly speculate about a probability on 8/8/07, I would like to know what the evidence is.  Instead, the next day (8/9/07) they tell me something to the effect that they never said what they said about a design flaw the previous day.Here is a quote from the story as it broke on 8/8/07:MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 8 - Investigators have found what may be a design flaw in the bridge that collapsed here a week ago, in the steel parts that connect girders, raising safety concerns for other bridges around the country, federal officials said on Wednesday. The Federal Highway Administration swiftly responded by urging all states to take extra care with how much weight they place on bridges of any design when sending construction crews to work on them. Crews were doing work on the deck of the Interstate 35W bridge here when it gave way, hurling rush-hour traffic into the Mississippi River and killing at least five people.The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_transportation_safety_board/index.html?inline=nyt-org">National Transportation Safety Board</a>'s investigation is months from completion, and officials in Washington said they were still working to confirm the design flaw in the so-called gusset plates and what, if any, role they had in the collapse. Still, in making public their suspicion about a flaw, the investigators were signaling they considered it a potentially crucial discovery and also a safety concern for other bridges. Gusset plates are used in the construction of many bridges, not just those with a similar design to the one here. Here is the link to the whole piece:<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/us/09bridge.html?_r=1&em&ex=1186804800&amp;amp;amp;en=1300c73d49a7256f&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/us/09bridge.html?_r=1&em&ex=1186804800&amp;amp;amp;en=1300c73d49a7256f&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin</a> I have no complaint about how the officials are conducting the investigation.  I expect them to look at both the computer models and finite element analysis, as well as each and every physical component of the collapsed bridge, and reconcile the models with the parts.  Also, I have no objection as to where they start their investigation, or the sequence once underway.  I would expect them to start in an area where the immediate evidence is the most compelling.  I realize that there may be damage in the actual parts that constitutes evidence of the cause of the collapse.  Everybody is anxious to learn the cause.  While I may speculate, I realize that it would be completely unreasonable for me to come to a conclusion because I am not qualified, and I don't have all of the evidence.  But bystanders and outsiders are free to speculate and guess.  However, the ones who cannot speculate and guess are the investigating officials.  For them, not only would speculation be pointless, it also might cloud their objectivity.So the larger issue to me is why the NSTB would even offer the suggestion publicly while their investigation is still under way.  I agree that the media did spread the information, but they did not create it.  The public speculation about a design flaw came from the investigating authorities.I suspect the loading on the bridge was small potatoes compared to the burden being borne by the designers, inspectors, and certifiers of that bridge since its collapse.  I believe that this pressure is causing irrational behavior within the responsible agencies as they twist and squirm under the limelight of the public demand to learn where the responsibility lies.  That limelight first focused on inspection, so it seems to me that they offered an excuse that inspection was difficult or impossible to execute.  Not only was that an astoundingly premature admission, considering that the investigation is still under way, but it also actually worsens the culpability surrounding a supposed lack of proper inspection.  To claim that inspection was too hard to do seems particularly ironic when you consider that they were already hotly denying the popular charge that they could not properly inspect because of a lack of resources.  They apparently realized how that charge would increase their burden of blame rather than alleviate it.  But they seemed to have missed that point when they came out and said that they could not properly inspect the bridge because certain details were inaccessible.I speculate that when they realized the implications of their claim of inspection difficulty, they wheeled out the potential design flaw to shift the focus.  If a design flaw was the reason, a lack of inspection was not.  Then by the very next day, they realized that their premature offering of a potential design flaw without any substantiation was extremely ill-advised, so they backpedaled and deflected by accusing us of running too far with their announcement on 8/8/9.  I have not seen any news whatsoever that appears to exaggerate their announcement of a potential design flaw.
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