Unethical construction

Recently, there was a tragedy that happened in Henan, China, before the Lunar Chinese New Year. It is located in Yichang part of Lianhuo highway, Henan Province. Lianhuo Highway was opened for public at 2002, it is 4395 kilometers long. The Lianhuo Highway is starts from Lianyungang City, and ends at Huoerguosi City. The Yichang Bridge was used for public transport for 10 years, now it was crashed by explode by fireworks. I thought no one can adapt this statement. So I did some research about this disaster. It is really hard to figure out the relevant information about this safety issue in Chinese network. The Yichang Bridge was crashed by the fireworks exploding on it according to official statement. It sounds ridiculous that the fireworks can destroy a highway bridge.

 Analyzing Reason

This tragedy was happened at 9 on February 1st 2013.  We can’t stop thinking how many fireworks supposed caused the bridge damage. It is impossible obviously only by one truck of fireworks. So, there should be a real reason that the Yichang Bridge issue happened. After the bridge crashed, there were so many photographers in that place. Based on the photos they took from the on the site, we can easily find that the steel rebar size can’t support the real load applied by the traffic and dead load by the concrete and pavement. It is not the steel rebar, it seems they are all steel strand wire. What are the differences between steel rebar and steel strand wire?  Steel rebar is the real steel adjust by the diameter size, also the section will be applied by the ratio of components.  The steel strand wire is combined and twisted of the thin steel wire. Steel strand wire only can support the less load structure, it is not as strong as the steel rebar in reinforced concrete. Based on this reason, we know this issue should relate with engineering ethics. It could have happened in the procedure of design or construction. The engineers’ design probably did not satisfy the requirement for the load combination for the bridge deck. But as the experience I have, it has more possibility that happened in construction process. The contractor used the steel strand wire instead of steel rebar; in this case, they could save part of budget in construction.
Ethics
According with the engineer ethic code, the engineer should hold paramount the safety, health, welfare of the public. In this case, the construction engineers didn’t apply the ethical code into the procedure of construction. For lower the expense of this project, they constructed the reinforce concrete with steel strand wire.

Also, it is not the only issue happening in this world. It is a dilemma with business and engineer. If the contractor is based on business purpose, they will raise the budget and the profit to the first place.  Only thing to be considered by businessmen is the how much money they can have in a project. Nevertheless, the project is public construction and should be concerned the public safety and welfare. As an engineer, they should hold the ethical code when they design and construct every project. They should set the public safety in the first place in mind. This is a most conflict we have nowadays with ethical problem.

Whatever the role the contractor plays, the public safety should be the most important issue in their mind, and I hope they will realize and do a better job in the future.