Ponte Morandi - Learning from failure (07)

If a batch of muffins 'may contain traces of nuts' but you have to use your epipen pen after the first bite, do you continue to eat the remaining muffins? If somebody had said to you 'thismuffin is wrong', would you have tucked in? 

Now imagine that muffin represented a bridge.

The Polcevera Viaduct (aka Ponte Morandi) in Genoa is one of the most fatal cases of structural failure in the 21st century. Designed by Italian engineer Riccardo Morandi, its unprecedented prestressed concrete cable-stayed design featured only four stays from each tower... Ever heard of the term 'redundancy', Morandi?

 This major design flaw was blatant to structural engineers, one of whom warned 'that bridge is wrong. Sooner or later it will have to be replaced'... Two years later, his warning was laid catastrophically bare.

How confident would you feel crossing one of Morandi's other almost identical bridges...?

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