The Tay Bridge Disaster - Essay Example

Also, the paper will discuss how modern engineering project management should prevent these from occurring and how the construction safeguards could prevent accidents like this. The collapse of the bridge brought into the picture the failure to maintain, optimum Engineering standards or practices by Thomas Bouch and his team. The first standard that has been not followed is the lack of strong cross bracing and fastening. That is, there is an insufficiency in cross bracing and its fastenings through out the bridge, which is very insufficient to sustain the force of strong gale.

The next standard that has been missed is not testing the bridge for wind pressure according to appropriate levels. That is, Bouch used a wind pressure of just 10 lbsf/sq ft to test the design of the Tay Bridge. On the other hand, the well known fact is, Bouch, after completing Tay Bridge worked on the Forth Bridge and while working on the design of a proposed Forth bridge, he had used wind pressure up to 30 lbsf/sq ft. Another standard that have been given a go by, is the practice of moulding lugs into the wrought iron, when lugs are attached to it.

Because of this mistake, the lugs were proved to break at loads of only 20 tons, while it is expected to withstand loads up to 60 tonnes (taybridgedisaster.co.uk). From the ethical perspective, Bouch, being the person in-charge, seems to have not shown great interest in the successful and foolproof completion of the project. That is, Bouch as well as the contractor appears to have not regularly visited the on-site foundry, where the iron scrap retrieved from the previously half-built bridge was recycled and remade into new structures.

Because of this lack of commitment and ethical responsibility from Bouch’s side, the cylindrical cast iron columns, which supported the bridge, were of bad quality. All these inefficiencies only contributed to the collapse of the bridge, leading to many repercussions. The main result is that, the