[Assam] More on Minneapolis Collapse

Wed Aug 8 06:51:28 PDT 2007

At 5:20 PM -0700 8/6/07, Krishnendu Chakraborty wrote:
Hi C'da

>Let me first say --- I am not a Architect/Strcutural
>Engineer or Civil Engineer .... so pardon my ignorance
>in this field

*** That is not something to apologize for.  However some of the issues I have been speaking about are fundamental to all engineering fields. That is why I am more than a bit surprised by your unfamiliarity. It goes to show that even an IIT software engineering graduate( that is only an educated guess) like yourself are quite oblivious of what other engineers do or are expected to be able to do, in the Indian context and not necessarily for exporting them to serve the needs of developed countries. 

That brings us back to your questions and responses. They are all over the place, and while I can and would be pleased to respond them, it would be far better to first pin down WHAT exactly it is that you are trying to prove or disprove with your inquisition.

I realize you disagree with some of what I wrote. But it also musty have caused you concern that the gullible or the uninformed may believe what I wrote. Thus your attempts to set the record straight, if not redeem Indian honors in areas that you must consider sullied by my observations. Question is WHAT are those areas ?

I will respond to them once you pin them down.

Take care.

Coming to your points ---

>	Did *I* make those assertions about the
> qualifications or even implied them about who
>	might have designed the bridge, or how good they
> were in math? How do you know who
>	designed it? What if it was designed by some very
> creative East Pakistani structural engineer
>	trained at BE college, like Fazlur Khan, who
> developed the structural system for the
>	Sears Towers? What then?

-----  Thanks for admiting that East Pakistani
Engineers too can be CREATIVE .... I guess you will
have similar view on Indian Engineers as well who did
not move out of India but contributing in India.

If this Engineer was "Bright and Creative" Engineer
educated in India your earlier assertion that Indian
education does not encourage Creativity is incorrect,
If this Engineer was "not bright and creative" your
land of "checks and balances"  still lacks some checks
.... right?

> I thought you are an engineer. But  from the
> comments you make and the questions you ask, I must
> have been wrong.  Anyway, a bridge's integrity is
> not the function of just its design alone. The math
> skills of the designer hardly enter the equation.
> Most structural elements fail not because of design,
> but
> for a variety of other factors, most notably due to
> poor construction practices , which is a result of
> incompetent management, human failures, sometimes
> corruption--as in India,

1)  So Checks and Balances does not help ??  I thought
poor construction practices, incompetent management
etc are ALL just Indian characteristics. 

2) Corruption DOES NOT happen only in India but here
in your adopted homeland too.  Big Dig issue happened
because of Corruption and not human failure(your
information is incorrect
at best or twisted at worst).   And BTW,  in Big Dig
too only  a couple of mid level managers have been
convicted while the big shots went scott free .... how
very Indian !!

Whoever was overseeing the
> logistics of the material delivery either did not
> have any knowledge of structures and load bearing
> capacity of a structure or was asleep at the wheel.

So,  the bright young Grads did not have knowledge
...what am I missing ... where are your checks and
balances

> The point I am trying to make here is that DESIGN is
> only a small factor in these cases. At any event,
> MOST structural design is not a result of creative
> engineering: they are dictated by standards and
> codes
> and budgets. Most day-to-day structural engineering
> in the USA is done not by highly skilled engineers,
> but by 'designers', who are vocational tech. school
> graduates with high school degrees,

It was you who mentioned that Creative American
Engineers contribute to Nation Building and Indian
Engineers have zero contribution in Nation Building.

By Nation Building , I thought building infrastructure
which includes Bridges, Roads, Power Plants etc.  Let
me know what exactly you mean by Nation Building.
Do you mean that these structural engineers who are
vocational tech school graduates are incompetent or
not Bright and Creative enough ??

> *** Can these be compared? Not if anyone is even
> remotely familiar with the issues. An Indian
> structural engineer could be a math genius and could
> mentally analyze the stress of a rocket ships nose
> cone at re-entry. But its usefulness in the Indian
> context is zip, zero, nada.

Was it you or some American Engineer who built the
Bridges and skyscrappers in India ?  Sorry did not
know that ......

But anyway  I can say from my field.  I am working for
a 100% Indian IT company and our company has a Banking
Software which is Number 1 Banking Software in World
for 4 consecutive years ..... and all these developed
by "not so creative"  Indian Engineers. I can vouch
that we did not take help from Chandan Mahanta or some
"Bright Creative American Engineer".

> An IIT PhD in structural engineering  could design
> US skyscrapers with ease, but won't be able to
> design a temporary bridge using bamboo and timber if
> their life depended on it. Why? Because the building
> materials, their quality standards and installed
> elements' quality can be and are tested and
> trustworthy in the USA. But the quality of

An IIT PhD can (and I am sure has)  also designed
Indian Skyscrapers and Bridges which does not collapse
in less then 50 years.
Coming to the point of Bamboo bridge etc,  can a MIT
electronic Engineer fix a TV set or Radio ?
No ...... Every training/teaching has its boundaries.

In US (also in India),  every company, even in IT
sector has something called HelpDesk which helps them
in setting up PC, installing software, networking etc.
 Most of these people are diploma engineers.  Why do
you think the Bright Creative Engineers cannot setup
their own PC, install their own software or setup
their network? 

> *** Again, there is no way to compare this for India
> vs USA.  India's circumstances are far different
> from the USA's.  But the bottom line could be gauged
> by the  PERCENTAGE of failures, or the frequency of
> it. Like how many American bridges fail out of how
> many, compared to in India.

Unfortunately,  I could not find any Indian bridge
which had such catastrophic collapse in less then 50
years of building.   Probably you can help.
 And BTW,  if you want to compare Apples to Apples,
you will also need to consider the traffic on any
Indian bridge to that of US bridge,  the amount spent
in constructing a bridge in India v/s that in US etc.

While I am into this,  wanted to cover one more point
----

>>>*** Indian social stigma . You are going to be a
plumber?
Horror of horrors. Oh, his son
	is JUST an electrician. What a shame. That is all he
became
with a first division at HS
	and two letters!

	*** Refusal to compensate adequately for such
services. An
engineer, by social status
	( not by skill now) will always be paid a far higher
compensation than an electrician or
	a mechanic.

So the problem is PUBLIC POLICY! Governmental policy.
And
social/cultural  attitudes.
>>>>>

1)  I can understand the social/cultural attitude (and
sure it need to change)  but I fail to understand HOW
the Governmental Policy comes into picture here?

2) As for compensation, you have Absolutely NO
knowledge of Today's India.  A good Plumber,
Electrician or Mechanic often makes more money then an
average Engineer .... at least in Mumbai.  Even in
Guwahati,  I had the opportunity to closely observe a
couple of Electronic Mechanics (fixing TV etc) and
many of them make much more then your imagination.

Before I conclude,  another example of how "checks and
balances"  fails miserably .....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070806/ts_nm/mine_utah_dc_6

The link also describes earlier accidents

Rgds

Krishnendu

--- cmahanta at charter.net wrote:

> Hi K:
>
>
> >C'da your comments on this will be highly
> appreciated
> --- first because it was designed by some Very
> Bright
> and Very Creative American Engineer whose Math
> >foundation is very strong (unlike some Desi idiot)
>
>
> *** I was hoping to be able to answer your question
> intelligently. But the premise of your questions
> left me completely bewildered.
>
>	Did *I* make those assertions about the
> qualifications or even implied them about who
>	might have designed the bridge, or how good they
> were in math? How do you know who
>	designed it? What if it was designed by some very
> creative East Pakistani structural engineer
>	trained at BE college, like Fazlur Khan, who
> developed the structural system for the
>	Sears Towers? What then?
>
> I thought you are an engineer. But  from the
> comments you make and the questions you ask, I must
> have been wrong.  Anyway, a bridge's integrity is
> not the function of just its design alone. The math
> skills of the designer hardly enter the equation.
> Most structural elements fail not because of design,
> but
> for a variety of other factors, most notably due to
> poor construction practices , which is a result of
> incompetent management, human failures, sometimes
> corruption--as in India, and sometimes just because
> of the laws of probability playing out: if something
> could go wrong, it would, sooner or later.
>
> The Boston Tunnel concrete panel failures were
> determined to be a result of using quick-setting
> epoxy bolts, instead of the specified standard
> setting epoxy, which develop their full strength
> slowly, over about 48 hours, but remain strong
> thereafter. On the other hand the quick setting
> epoxy develops strength within minutes, but do not
> retain it over time. Investigators found, that the
> right material was ordered by the installers, but
> was furnished the wrong product by the supplier . It
> appears as though someone in the shipping warehouse
> packed the wrong stuff.  Here it is a case of a
> human failure, that no amount engineering acumen or
> management expertise could have prevented.
>
> The Minneapolis failure seems to have been
> precipitated by huge amounts of dead weight piled on
> the bridge deck from rock sent for the repairs. This
> is a management failure.  Whoever was overseeing the
> logistics of the material delivery either did not
> have any knowledge of structures and load bearing
> capacity of a structure or was asleep at the wheel.
>
> There could be other factors: Such as non-inclusion
> of the redundancy principle of design. This was a
> political issue, of managing the cost and funding.
> Or defective welding. Fifty years back welding
> technology was not as sophisticated as it is today.
> Today we have ultrasonic testing done, before
> welded structural members of critical components. In
> my last major project, I had to reject a number of
> large span bowstring trusses, which were shop
> welded, but installed without ultrasonic testing.
> The installers installed the trusses, but when asked
> for certificates of testing, could not produce them.
> On site testing showed that a number of joints were
> unacceptable. The result was a very expensive on
> site correction of the joints that cost the steel
> fabricators big time. By the end of the job, the
> fabricator was going out of business. Apparently it
> had other problems elsewhere as well. They got our
> job, because they were the lowest bidders, and not
> necessarily because they were also good fabricators.
> The public bidding requirements in this case was a
> contributing factor-- by allowing a fabricator of
> questionable skills or management abilities to get
> the work.
>
> The point I am trying to make here is that DESIGN is
> only a small factor in these cases. At any event,
> MOST structural design is not a result of creative
> engineering: they are dictated by standards and
> codes
> and budgets. Most day-to-day structural engineering
> in the USA is done not by highly skilled engineers,
> but by 'designers', who are vocational tech. school
> graduates with high school degrees, who are familiar
> with codes and standards and know how to look up
> standard tables and size structural elements.
>
> Us vs India:
>
> *** Can these be compared? Not if anyone is even
> remotely familiar with the issues. An Indian
> structural engineer could be a math genius and could
> mentally analyze the stress of a rocket ships nose
> cone at re-entry. But its usefulness in the Indian
> context is zip, zero, nada.
>
> An IIT PhD in structural engineering  could design
> US skyscrapers with ease, but won't be able to
> design a temporary bridge using bamboo and timber if
> their life depended on it. Why? Because the building
> materials, their quality standards and installed
> elements' quality can be and are tested and
> trustworthy in the USA. But the quality of a welded
> joint or the strength of on-site, hand-mixed batches
> of concrete  in India cannot be.  So this
> engineering whiz from IIT will be stumped, wouldn't
> know what to do.  The experienced but uneducated
> Bihari cement-mistry would know more than the PhD
> engineer, who is even further handicapped because
> his training is entirely academic, without a sense
> of how various materials behave under different
> circumstances. He is a babe in the woods in the
> absence of strength tables of materials, because he
> never has had the exposure to the real world.
>
> Checks and Balances:
>
> *** Again, there is no way to compare this for India
> vs USA.  India's circumstances are far different
> from the USA's.  But the bottom line could be gauged
> by the  PERCENTAGE of failures, or the frequency of
> it. Like how many American bridges fail out of how
> many, compared to in India.
>
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> c-da
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 4:01 PM -0700 8/2/07, Krishnendu Chakraborty
> wrote:
> Bridge 'structurally deficient'
>
> Engineers spotted structural problems in the bridge
> as
> far back as 1990, but state officials thought
> patches
> and yearly inspections would be enough to keep it
> together, Minnesota's top bridge engineer said. This
> year's inspection started in June and would have
> been
> finished in September after $2.4 million worth of
> maintenance on the deck, joints, guardrails and
> lights.
>
> -------
>
> C'da your comments on this will be highly
> appreciated
> --- first because it was designed by some Very
> Bright
> and Very Creative American Engineer whose Math
> foundation is very strong (unlike some Desi idiot)
> and
> second,  the "chacks and balances"  seems to have
> failed  and third because it is your field of
> expertise.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
>
> > O' Ram:
> >
> > Hope your weekend is going well. We had a nice
> > kharkhowa gathering,
> > along with some  kolgutikhowas and even a couple
> of
> > desuali  folks
> > last evening. This has been the most pleasant of
> > July weather I can
> > recall in our 32 years in St. Louis. A light
> breeze
> > carrying mist
> > from the river kept us comfortable, the mosquitos
> > were on vacation,
>
=== message truncated ===

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