A week after the the collapse of the I-35W Bridge, I made out to Minneapolis and trekked down with Publisher Joan Kelly and savvy guide and colleague Joe Hoopes to the adjacent Stone Arch Bridge. That’s the historic former railroad bridge turned pedestrian walkway spanning the Mississippi to link downtown Minneapolis with the east side of town. It’s about a quarter of mile upriver (north) from the I-35 Bridge and was full of gawkers like us. One could see the upturned substructure on the east side and I managed to get 200 yards closer by the Stone Arch Apartments to police line next to the east side of the bridge. Cars were still astrewn on the bridge and a hapless railway car was still crushed underneath that section of the span. A crane had been brought in in collapse roadway deck in the middle of the river.
I shot about 50 photos many of which I will shortly post. There are from some distance and the dam superstructure obscured the view of the west side spans roadway that collapsed mostly over land. I could not help but ponder the loss of life had it been 20 degrees below zero, had the Mississippi been running at full tilt in spring, had it happened at night, had there been no construction meaning the bridge would have been open to three lanes each way or had cars had been doing 70 over the bridge instead of being stuck in rush hour traffic. The loss of life is tragic but could have been much, much worse. Many area residents are reporting they felt the bridge sway sideways when they crossed it in the couple of weeks preceding the collapse. And finger pointing is beginning bigtime right up to the Minnestoa Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
8 
