NTSB Safety Recommendations H-08-20 through -25

[NTSB Press Releases <NTSBPressReleases@xxxxxxxx>]

Title: NTSB Safety Recommendations H-08-20 through -25

************************************************************

                   NTSB SAFETY RECOMMENDATION

************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board

Washington, DC 20594

November 21, 2008

************************************************************

NTSB Safety Recommendations H-08-20 through -25

************************************************************

The National Transportation Safety Board makes the following

recommendations to the American Association of State Highway

and Transportation Officials:

Work with the Federal Highway Administration to develop and

implement a bridge design quality assurance/quality control

program, to be used by the States and other bridge owners,

that includes procedures to detect and correct bridge design

errors before the design plans are made final; and, at a

minimum, provides a means for verifying that the appropriate

design calculations have been performed, that the

calculations are accurate, and that the specifications for

the load-carrying members are adequate with regard to the

expected service loads of the structure. (H-08-20)

Revise your Manual for Bridge Evaluation to include guidance

for conducting load ratings on new bridges before they are

placed in service. (H-08-21)

Modify the guidance and procedures in your Manual for Bridge

Evaluation to include evaluating the capacity of gusset

plates as part of the load rating calculations performed for

non-load-path-redundant steel truss bridges. (H-08-22)

When the findings of the Federal Highway Administration-

American Association of State Highway and Transportation

Officials joint study on gusset plates become available,

update the Manual for Bridge Evaluation accordingly. (H-08-

23)

Develop specifications and guidelines for use by bridge

owners to ensure that construction loads and stockpiled raw

materials placed on a structure during construction or

maintenance projects do not overload the structural members

or their connections. (H-08-24)

Include gusset plates as a commonly recognized structural

element (CoRe) and develop guidance for bridge owners in

tracking and responding to potentially damaging conditions

in gusset plates, such as corrosion and distortion; and

revise the AASHTO Guide for Commonly Recognized (CoRe)

Structural Elements to incorporate this new information. (H-

08-25)

************************************************************

http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/2008/H08_20_25.pdf

************************************************************

The complete recommendation letter is available on the Web

at the URL indicated above.

The letter is in the Portable Document Format (PDF) and can

be read using the Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later from Adobe

(http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html).

       

An archive of recommendation letters is available at

http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/letters.htm.

Electronic versions of letters may or may not include

enclosures; however, related publications, accident

briefs, and aviation accident synopses may be found

on the NTSB website.

************************************************************

This message is delivered to you as a free service from the

National Transportation Safety Board.

You may unsubscribe at any time at

http://www.ntsb.gov/registration/registration.htm  

An archive of press releases is available at

http://www.ntsb.gov/pressrel/pressrel.htm

Current job opportunities with the NTSB are listed at

http://www.ntsb.gov/vacancies/listing.htm

For questions/problems, contact pubinq@xxxxxxxx