The huge Maurice J. Tobin Bridge that links Boston and the communities to the north is just three years shy of its 60th birthday. Every morning and sometimes in the evening, the two and one quarter mile cantilevered truss bridge backs up with Boston’s famously awful bumper to bumper traffic. With the horrific Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse last night, it makes one trapped in traffic on "The Tobin" all more nervous.
I have been mid-span which the roadway bump literally starts bouncing which is especially pronounced when a trick goes by. I’m told it’s supposed to do this to relieve stress. Nonetheless, it’s unnerving given you’re 135 feet above busy Boston Harbor represented at that point by the Mystic River. The sensation of potential danger is accentuated by a large and much publicized LNG depot about a fifth of a mile upriver.
And it’s an old bridge like many in America. On Sept. 10, 1973, an overloaded gravel truck was headed north and hit a bridge beam bringing down a section of the southbound roadway above. A similar accident occurred in 1995. Besides localized damage, the bridge as a whole stood tall. And 34 days after the 1973 accident, the bridge was threatened yet again by a giant fire that destroyed 18 city blocks in Chelsea, Mass.
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.
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