We promise you a very special webinar .  This is not your ordinary boring ethics webinar.  We are very proud to bring this webinar to you. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake resulted in the drop of a 50-foot-long segment of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, an 18,000-foot-long steel bridge. The earthquake caused the collapse of the concrete double-deck viaduct, killing 42 people. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) undertook a multi-billion dollar retrofit and replacement program, which included the replacement of the Eastern Spans of the Bay Bridge with a single-tower self-anchored suspension bridge. The bridge took 15 years to design and construct, more than twice the original plan. At the cost of $6.5 billion, a 2,500% cost overrun from the initial estimate of $250 million to retrofit the existing span to a 500% cost overrun for the new bridge.  The SAS Bay Bridge had more than 16 severe structural problems, including the fracture of the anchor rods of the main tower, which occurred even before the bridge opened to traffic. This course traces the root cause of the problems of SAS Bay Bridge mainly to the “conflict of interest” among the engineer members of various advisory and peer review committees of Caltrans. The engineers charged with independently overseeing and peer-reviewing the seismic safety aspects of the new bridge were themselves receiving contracts to do the design and testing work on the same bridge they were peer-reviewing. Dr. Astaneh will present a summary of his extensive seismic analysis, test results, and retrofit design of the 1936 East Spans of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, which sustained relatively minor damage but was demolished and replaced with the new Self-Anchored Suspension (SAS) Bay Bridge, which opened to traffic in 2013. The seismic response of both bridges to the same ground motions that the bridges might see will be compared. He will show how the “conflict of interests” of some members of the top advisory boards and the peer review committees was at the root of the design and construction problems of the new SAS Bay Bridge. Some critical elements of the new SAS Bay Bridge, such as the tower and the east support’s 3-inch diameter high-strength anchor rods, fractured even before the new bridge was opened to traffic. References and Recommended Further Readings:

1. Code of Ethics of National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) (PDF)
2. NSPE Ethics Reference Guide (PDF)
3. ASCE Code of Ethics (PDF)
4. Ethics, Technology, and Engineering, a book by Ibo van de Poel and Lambèr Royakkers, Wily-Blackwell, 2011.
5. Concepts and Cases-Engineering Ethics, a book by Charles E. Harris et al., published by Cengage2019.
6. Engineering Ethics-Contemporary and Enduring Debates, a book by Deborah G. Johnson, 2020.
7. Concerns on Seismic Safety of the New East Bay Bridge Design, by A. Astaneh-Asl, Submitted to Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) (PDF).
8. Astaneh Letter to Bay Area Toll Bridge Oversight Committee on SAS Bay Bridge Problems, PDF
9. Concrete Credence: More Bay Bridge Woes May Validate Concerns of Span’s #1 Criticby Glen Martin, CALIFORNIA Magazine (PDF).
10. A Bridge Too Weak? Ron Russel, San Francisco Weekly (PDF).
11. Bridge Over Troubled Bolts: Cal Experts Question Whether New Bridge is Safe, CALIFORNIA Magazine (PDF)
12. Cracked welds raise doubts about Bay Bridge safety, by Charles Piller, Sacramento Bee Newspaper (PDF).
13. Do hidden cracks imperil Bay Bridge?By Charles Piller, Sacramento Bee Newspaper (PDF)
14. A Bridge Suspended in Controversy WIRED Online Magazine (PDF)
15. Panel that reviewed Bay Bridge foundations has ties to Caltrans, Sacramento Bee Newspaper (PDF).
16. Bay Bridge troubles began with design – SFGate (PDF).

Date:  Wednesday. October 16. 2024 . Starts: 2 - 4 pm ET Credits: 2 PDH Units

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, the student should understand:

• How the 1936 East Spans Structure of the Bay Bridge performed during the 1989 earthquake and why with a relatively small amount of retrofit ($240M) it would seismically perform better than the new 2013 SAS Bay Bridge.
• How might the 2013 New SAS Bay Bridge perform during future earthquakes?
• What are the 16 serious engineering problems of the new SAS BAY Bridge?
• What does Canon 3 of the Code of Ethics: “Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner,” mean?
• What does Canon 4 of the Code of Ethics: “Engineers shall act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees” mean?
• What are the “legal” and “ethical” responsibilities of engineers in “Avoiding Conflict of Interest.”
• How not “Avoiding Conflict of Interest” was at the root of many problems and failures of the new SAS Bay Bridge.
• What “conflict of interest existed in the members of the Caltrans Seismic Advisory Board and Caltrans Seismic Safety Peer Review Panel concerning planning, design, testing, and construction of the SAS Bay Bridge?
• What lessons can we learn from the case of the SAS Bay Bridge to “Avoid Conflict of Interests.”

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