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UMaine bridge technology collapses

Contactors used different technique than usual to fill arches with concrete

Posted on Oct. 30, 2009, at 4:33 p.m.

Two concrete arches for a monument in Cloke Plaza at the University of Maine collapsed during construction Thursday.

The arches were two carbon-composite tubes designed as bridge supports for the “bridge in a backpack” technology developed at UMaine’s Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center. The arches are typically filled from the top with concrete to form supports for bridges — such as for the Neal Bridge in Pittsfield, where the technology was recently employed. Construction workers at the plaza instead filled the two arches from the bottom.

“It burst out the side of the cylinder because of the pressure, and that initiated a collapse of the first arch,” said Dana Humphrey, dean of the College of Engineering. “And then that first arch shifted a little bit, and that caused the second arch to also, basically, crack and the concrete spilled out the bottom.”

The site was littered with pieces from the two broken arches Friday afternoon, as well as scaffolding that had originally held the tubes erect. One of the scaffolds had been knocked down by the arches’ fall.

“The technique being used to fill the arches didn’t work the way that we wanted it to work,” Humphrey said.

Humphrey said there is nothing wrong with the arches or the technology, just the technique the contractor used to fill them. He said the arches, though typically used on bridges, are designed for the position they had been placed in the plaza. Humphrey didn’t know the cost of the arches or the project.

“We were hired to put them up, and obviously something failed,” said Blaine Door, one of the contractors working on the project.

Construction of the arches will be abandoned until next year. In the meantime, construction on the rest of the plaza will continue. Workers will repair sidewalks and put the Wingate Hall bell in a display case in the plaza as part of an art piece the arches were originally going to be a part of. Money for the project is coming in part from the construction of the engineering and science building, the Advanced Engineering Center and the AEWC, as well as part of the landscaping budget for the Advanced Manufacturing Center.

“I’m sure we’ll have a different technique for how to fill them [next year],” Humphrey said.

Campus Currents: Advanced Engineered Wood Composites