In the afternoon a contractor from Michael Baker International was performing a routine inspection of the Interstate 40 Mississippi River Bridge (also called the Hernando de Soto Bridge) discovered a. The second tension tie may have taken up much of its partner's stress and the pier supporting the arch may have been subject to a lot more horizontal force than it was designed to withstand. — The traffic nightmare that has plagued West Memphis this summer due to the I-40 bridge closure has finally come to an end. Found inside – Page 4Early this year the legislatures of both states passed resolutions to name the structure the Hernando DeSoto Bridge after the Spanish explorer who is ... This includes 9 Fracture Critical Bridges inspected last year and if the weather cooperates we’ll be finished re-inspecting these by the end of June. On May 11, an ARDOT consultant discovered a crack in the bottom side of the bridge truss during a routine inspection and immediately shut down the bridge. One of the biggest questions everyone is asking, and rightly so given the severity of the situation, is “how long has this structural member been cracked?”. We are now investigating to see if the damage was noted in previous reports and what actions were taken. Found inside – Page 815Personal Notes E. A. de Funiak was born at Hernando , DeSoto County , Mississippi , and was reared and educated in Louisville , Ky . Contractors will have completed all the phase three plating by Friday. Update May 19, 2021: TDOT also inspected the bridge and found it to be safe and up to the task of the new traffic load. A timeline for when the Interstate 40 . The Hernando de Soto Bridge is a through arch bridge carrying Interstate 40 across the Mississippi River between West Memphis, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee.The design is a continuous cantilevered cable-stayed steel through arch, with bedstead endposts. Crack in the I-40 bridge, called the Hernando de Soto Bridge, over the Mississippi River at Memphis. Eastbound I-55 travelers should expect traffic congestion on Sunday. This bridge in specific was last inspected in September 2020 and gets inspected annually because it’s classified as ‘fracture critical’ due to how it’s built. The I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge crossing the Mississippi River connecting Arkansas and Tennessee on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. Crews will begin the paving and restriping this week as the weather allows. We have added the referenced photos to our gallery below. TDOT reports significant progress is being made to repairs on the I-40 Mississippi River Bridge. This decision to close the bridge snarled traffic, forcing cars and trucks to detour over the older and smaller I-55 bridge nearby. Given those requirements, you would think that this crack, discovered in May of 2021 did not exist the year before. I-40 through Tennessee and Arkansas is one of the busiest freight . Here's some of what is happening this week: In-depth inspections of the bridge are also happening. (Two photos added to gallery.). Construction on the Hernando de Soto bridge continued Friday as the Tennessee Department of . We will publish another update on Friday, July 30. We discovered drone footage showing that the crack was clearly visible in mid-2019. The Hernando de Soto Bridge in Memphis, Tennessee — a vital shipping and trucking route that connects Tennessee and Arkansas — has been closed to traffic since Tuesday after a routine inspection uncovered a potentially " catastrophic " crack in one of the bridge's beams. Questions about the Inspector that was terminated and which bridges he was responsible for and also explanations on why we aren’t answering everything without a FOIA being submitted. *Please note updates will now be twice a week, Monday and Friday*. That will involve hands-on checking of practically every square inch of steel on the bridge, and probably non-destructive tests that can identify defects like using x-rays, magnetic particles or dyes that make cracks more apparent. We are at the front of the line for fabrication, and materials are expected to be delivered in late June. Traffic crossing the river has been rerouted to the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, three miles to the south, on Interstate 55 while the Hernando de Soto Bridge was being repaired. The safety of the workers and the public is our number one priority. De-tensioning of the tension rods could begin this weekend or early next week. River traffic under the six-lane bridge was shut down . Found insideIn the distance, the huge double arches of the Hernando de Soto Bridge spanned the Mississippi, curved and bright in the ... A fresh breeze blew over me and the morning world smelled gloriously of exhaust fumes and river traffic. Scheduling of the repairs is underway with a goal of having the bridge re-opened by the end of July. Most materials are stronger against forces along their axis than those applied at right angles (called bending forces). The non-selected option would require removing the entire fractured steel box member (tie Girder) and replacing it with new components. Knowing how significant an impact closing the bridge would be on such a vital corridor, how did engineers know to act so quickly and decisively? In 2020 we completed more than 10,000 bridge inspections. Phase 2 repairs will consist of removing and replacing the steel member. Again, without a detailed structural model, it’s impossible to say how the dynamic cycles of traffic forces are distributed through each member. Vertical supports transfer the load of the deck onto the arch. LITTLE ROCK (7-28) - Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) Director Lorie Tudor announced today the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River will reopen under limited traffic while contractors finish the work. The trucking industry was dealt a big blow when the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) shut down the Hernando de Soto Bridge on May 11. You can view the video, The referenced drone footage is available. The eastbound lanes of the Hernando de Soto Bridge . On May 11, the unrelenting traffic crossing the Mississippi River at Memphis via I-40 and the Hernando de Soto Bridge hit the brakes due to a steel beam structural issue found by an inspector. The plan is to reduce merging points along the I-40/I-55 corridor in West Memphis to improve traffic flow. Found inside – Page 279They could do it in their sleep, and at this time of night, there were no traffic problems. ... At 2:21 am, they would pull back onto the interstate and head for the target, the Hernando de Soto Bridge just to the west of Memphis, ... 11, 2008 at 5:25 PM PDT. These updates are clearly labeled and dated. Drilling, bolting, and torqueing are ongoing. This bridge sees an average of 50,000 vehicles per day. Contract signed between ARDOT and HNTB for a re-inspection of the I-40 MS River Bridge; inspection to begin early next week. The Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River, with components labeled This bridge's structural system is defined as an arched truss bridge with a deck suspended from the truss. A tentative opening date for the I-40 MS River Bridge can be set after the contractor’s repairs and bridge inspection results are reviewed. This week,  the contractor is working on removal of temporary anchors and rigging, along with re-installation of miscellaneous bracing. This work was completed during 24-hour shifts where crews installed fabricated steel plates on each side of the fractured member to secure the bridge for Phase 2 repairs. That’s more than 27 bridges inspected every day. And the box tie member at the I-40 bridge is a built-up section. The Tennessee Department of Transportation said it would open all westbound lanes by 3:00 p.m. Well, traffic began moving even earlier with the westbound lanes being opened just before 1:15 p.m. TDOT announced that they intend to have a schedule for the bridge reopening to traffic next week. Shelby County . Our leadership team gets an up close look at the I-40 Mississippi River bridge repairs as they meet with TDOT officials. Found inside – Page 201The Mississippi River Bridge lands in Arkansas at about the same place Hernando de Soto held the first Christian service ... the Rebels' failure to retake Helena allowed the Yankees to keep the river open to traffic and gave them a base ... That means when the deck moves, the tension ties move with it, potentially introducing stresses that could exacerbate the formation of a crack. The structural design team is currently completing the design of those plates this week. Found inside – Page 88_'IHE BRIDGE Around 4:00 the next morning, a Memphis police officer responded to a trucker's report about an abandoned vehicle on the lnterdate40 Hernando DeSoto Bridge, which spansthe Mississippi River between ... We inspected the I-55 bridge thoroughly in August 2020 and then completed another visual inspection on May 12. Found inside – Page 37By the time I got back to the office, it was after four, I put in a call to an acquaintance at the DA's office, but didn't get ... Reflections from the lights on the M-shaped Hernando DeSoto bridge shimmered and danced on the black, ... The I-55 bridge where drivers will be detoured to is actually older than the de Soto Bridge. Contractor has made significant progress with seven of the eight steel plates in place. There are so many ways to span a gap, all singular in function but remarkably different in form. The 48-year-old structure is officially known as the Hernando de Soto Bridge, or "the new bridge." Traffic is being routed to the four-lane Interstate 55 bridge, 3 miles to the south. The bridge has been closed since inspectors found a fracture in the bridge. They will begin to demobilize, break down platforms, […] Although it hadn’t yet grown to its eventual size, the crack is nearly impossible to miss. That means no drones or observations from a distance - a human person has to check every surface of the steel from, at minimum, an arm’s length away. New traffic flow announced as repair work continues on cracked I-40 bridge TDOT releases video showing how the I-40 Hernando de Soto bridge will be repaired Jobs Just from looking at it, you can tell that this support was not designed for horizontal loading. 3. Now, officials are saying even temporary repairs to the bridge . In addition, bridges are full of repetitive details. Memphians also call the bridge the "New Bridge", as it is newer than the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (carrying Interstate 55) downstream, and . We are holding daily meetings with ARDOT, our consultants, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department, and FHWA to develop and expedite the repair project while managing traffic along the alternate routes. One type of bridge takes advantage of a structural feature that’s been around for millennia: the arch. You can expect your next daily update on Monday. Forensic analysis of a failure requires a tremendous amount of information before arriving at a conclusion, including structural analysis, material testing, and review of historical information. If they were, the load cycles would probably be a lot less dynamic. Tennessee Department of Transportation photo On Tuesday, an inspection of an important bridge connecting Arkansas and Tennessee over the Mississippi River at Memphis revealed a serious crack in a beam. ARDOT announced that they fired an unnamed inspector who was presumably responsible for the annual inspections on this bridge. All eastbound lanes of the bridge are slated for re-opening by 6am Monday August 2nd. Found inside – Page 322... traffic often slowed to a crawl between Arkansas and Tennessee on the grand steel arches of the Hernando de Soto Bridge, the span carrying the American transportation artery Highway I-40 across the Mississippi between Arkansas ... Bridges are particularly susceptible to fatigue because traffic loads are so dynamic. A thorough inspection of the I-55 bridge is complete, and TDOT finds that all previous inspection work done by ArDOT accurately reflects the bridge's condition. The Memphis-Arkansas I-55 bridge, where vehicle traffic is rerouted, was opened in 1949, some years before the Hernando de Soto Bridge opened to traffic in 1973. The I-55 bridge was most recently . On May 18, the Arkansas and Tennessee Departments of Transportation announced a loose timeline of when the Hernando de Soto Bridge across the Mississippi River along Interstate 40 will reopen. Once the last bolt is torqued on the plate, these items can be completed. National bridge standards require inspections for highway bridges every two years. This phase is expected to take several months and traffic cannot resume until it is completed. That is tens of millions of load cycles every year. The Tennessee Department of Transportation selected Kiewit Corporation to perform the emergency repairs to the I-40 MS River Bridge. Their news release about it can be found. Found inside – Page 194They understood him that the chief traffic in that province was in those ... Accordingly , in the month of March ( 1540 ) Hernando de Soto broke up his ... There will not be a lot of activity on the bridge over the holiday weekend, but work continues behind the scenes finalizing the repair designs and sourcing steel components. TDOT has elected to not perform work at the Crump interchange on Friday, both minimizing congestion and allowing us to evaluate the impact of the traffic pattern changes implemented yesterday. There is no good highway from there to the crossing on I-20 at Vicksburg. Found inside – Page 321The interstate was busy but fast, three lanes of traffic moving at or above the speed limit. ... and the iconic curved trusses of the Hernando de Soto Bridge lit up beyond it, an elegant giant M across the Mississippi. This bridge, prior to the closure of I-40’s bridge, saw around 46,000 vehicles a day with 35% of that traffic being commercial trucks. Following recent traffic pattern changes by ARDOT and TDOT, less congestion and fewer back-ups have been observed on I-40/I-55. And the primary reason that a crack would initiate in a steel tension member of a bridge is fatigue. Found inside – Page 93Built in 1967 , the l - 40 Hernando DeSoto Bridge lies to the north and ... systems will depend mainly on encouraging alternate transportation forms and ... U.S. Secretary Pete Buttigieg plans to visit Memphis on Thursday (tomorrow) to tour the I-40 MS River Bridge and speak with Arkansas and Tennessee officials. Contractors are making progress on the phase three repairs. The repairs are expected to go through July. For additional information: Kiewit Infrastructure Group worked to complete the platform extension today. Quality management is an absolutely essential part of all engineering activities. It’s a common way to get structural steel members in whatever shape the design requires. Arkansas Department of Transportation (ArDOT) Director Lorie Tudor announced Wednesday the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River will reopen under limited traffic while . -----------------------------------------. What Really Happened at the Hernando de Soto Bridge. The first is expected tomorrow. I-40 Hernando De Soto Bridge Partially Reopens Limited Traffic Can Resume Monday. It also created a backup of hundreds of barges and ships needing to pass north and south on the Mississippi River below the bridge. Put simply and clearly, there is absolutely no excuse for this crack to have sat open on the bridge’s tie member for as long as it did. Found insideNot in the above picture are the MemphisArkansas bridge for general vehicular use and the Hernando De Soto bridge opened for l-4O traffic in 1973. Tennessee Department of Transportation Collection at the Tennessee State Library and ... And it is cracking. Found inside – Page 196A graceful arched bridge maintains traffic on the historic alignment of Central ... Hernando De Soto Bridge Bridge Connects West Memphis , AR 1973 with ... The Tennessee Department of Transportation's announcement came two days after . The . You can view the video. History of Hernando de Soto I-40 bridge in Downtown Memphis. At 9:00 p.m. the eastbound lanes of the I-40 Mississippi River Bridge were reopened to traffic. In-depth ultrasonic weld testing inspection of the I-40 bridge are continuing, and we added a photo to our gallery below. Diagram showing the location of the crack on the Hernando de Soto bridge over I-40 in Memphis. TDOT dedicated two teams and drones to review new and previous inspection footage and reports for the I-55 MS River Bridge, taking a very careful look in an overabundance of caution. On May 11, 2021, a climbing team from an outside engineering firm was performing a detailed inspection of the bridge's superstructure. The Hernando de Soto Bridge on Interstate 40 — a major artery for traffic crossing the Mississippi River between Memphis and eastern Arkansas — was shut down Tuesday for emergency repairs . All interstate traffic in the Memphis area is being diverted to I-55. So far, there is nothing of concern. You can view it, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg toured the I-40 MS River Bridge and gave remarks to the press in Memphis today. These inspections are not fast affairs and a structure like this one can take a full week even with the weather cooperating. ARDOT, however, says it is in good shape and can handle the additional traffic load. (Gerritt Volmer/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0) TDOT reports that a total of 16 plate locations that are critical to repair have been identified. To explain that, we need to do a quick lesson on arch bridges. The six-lane Hernando de Soto Bridge connecting Tennessee and Arkansas reopened to eastbound Interstate 40 traffic Saturday and in both directions Monday, according to the Arkansas Department of . Thank you, and let me know what you think. We inspected this bridge in September 2020 and it was rated to be in fair condition, which is pretty good for a bridge built in 1973 that sees on average more than 41,000 vehicles a day with 31% of that traffic being commercial vehicles. Found inside – Page 49... until the exit to the Hernando - DeSoto Bridge . Jessie sees the exit , turns on the radio , and shoots across traffic to get on the bridge . The impact of the closure of the Hernando de Soto Bridge on I-40 has put local transportation and intermodal firms in a jam. It is safe and can carry the current load. Memphians also call the bridge the "New Bridge", [1] as it is newer than the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (carrying Interstate 55) downstream, and the "M Bridge", due to its distinctive shape. The first five of six plates are set. Load testing of the I-40 Mississippi River bridge is complete. On May 11, the unrelenting traffic crossing the Mississippi River at Memphis via I-40 and the Hernando de Soto Bridge hit the brakes due to a steel beam structural issue found by an inspector. As all interstate traffic in the Memphis area is diverted to I-55, we continue collecting data and studying ways to alleviate congestion and advance flow. Home / Divisions / Public Information / The I-40 Mississippi River Bridge. You can view the video. Found inside – Page 45This project demonstrates that new technology and teamwork within the transportation community can build a healthier , safer future . Hernando DeSoto Bridge during an event . The system will consist of 114 sensors at 38 locations on the ... The Caravan Bridge in Turkey was built nearly 3,000 years ago but is still in use today. The bridge has been closed since inspectors found a fracture in the bridge. (One photo added to gallery.). We do not have an exact opening date yet, but we are getting close. Unfortunately, ARDOT provided a drone inspection video from 2 years earlier, clearly showing the crack on the tie beam. The I-40 Bridge was built from 1966 to 1973. We also have a webpage dedicated to the bridge repair. Director Tudor and other ARDOT Employees answered questions from the legislature at a meeting of the Arkansas Highway Review and Advisory Sub-Committee in the afternoon. Media channels may have video of the event on their websites. Temporary weldment brackets are continuing to be installed on the bridge in preparation for the post tensioning phase of the final repair. Found insideWiley was staying at his father's home in Memphis. The Hernando de Soto Bridge carries Interstate 40 out of Memphis, across the Mississippi River into Arkansas. The traffic on the bridge was reduced to ... 24/7 operations are expected to resume next week. Found inside – Page 206At this time three bridges crossed the Mississippi at Memphisithe Frisco Bridge, constructed in 1892 for train traffic and ... The “new” bridge, part of I-40 north of downtown, is the Hernando de Soto Bridge designed in the shape of the ... The contractor is finishing phase 2 and beginning phase 3, repairing additional areas of concern from the weld inspections as analysis of the 800-page weld inspection report continues. The I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge crossing the Mississippi River connecting Arkansas and Tennessee on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. 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