A timber bridge that collapsed as a truck drove over it in Norway this week had only a third of the intended load capacity, investigators have found. The fault in the bridge, which was built to carry traffic over the new E6 highway which is still in construction in Gudbrandsdalen, was caused by an error in the calculations.
The bridge was intended to have a carrying capacity of 65t, but the error in the calculations led to it having only a third of the capacity and collapsing under the load of the 31t truck.
Consultant Reinertsen was responsible for the design of the bridge. All drawings and calculations were quality controlled internally by Reinertsen over several stages, and the bridge was checked and approved by the Public Roads Administration, Statens Vegvesen, as part of the final approval prior to construction.
The error in the calculations was made by Reinertsen, which discovered the mistake during its internal review following the bridge collapse, and notified the roads authority .
"Why the error was not discovered in our procedures we do not know yet," said Statens Vegvesen head of traffic safety, environment & technology Marit Brandtsegg. "It is still very soon after the design error was detected - and we do not have all the answers yet. This is one of the avenues we will be investigating."
