Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

The same is true of bridges.

So far as I can recall, bridges have only been mentioned in passing on this forum. I can imagine that the railway bridges will be the most vulnerable to infrastructure decay. Likewise, any deteriorating underground piping systems that railroads pass over are more vulnerable. I also think the natural gas and oil pipelines are vulnerable, but for a different reason.

[John]

From 60 Minutes:

Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure

Steve Kroft reports on why our roads, bridges, airports and rail are outdated and need to be fixed


The following is a script of "Falling Apart" which aired on Nov. 23, 2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apa ... structure/

[Higgenbotham]

The same is true of bridges.

So far as I can recall, bridges have only been mentioned in passing on this forum. I can imagine that the railway bridges will be the most vulnerable to infrastructure decay. Likewise, any deteriorating underground piping systems that railroads pass over are more vulnerable. I also think the natural gas and oil pipelines are vulnerable, but for a different reason.

http://www.wpr.org/citizens-federal-off ... -la-crosse

I have a harder time deciphering the meaning of an article and an image like this. I've talked to structural engineers about this type of thing and they tell me deteriorating rebar can be a problem inside a concrete structure long before it is visible as rust. I can't imagine why that would be true.

Looking at the example of an underground pipe exposed to soil with let's say a 1/4 inch thickness, that to me is a lot more vulnerable to corrosion over the same span of time than a half inch rebar within a concrete bridge, even if the concrete has peeled off (can't think of the right term for this) and the rebar is exposed. The exposed and rusted rebar is more visible than the underground pipe, though, and this photo is definitely scary looking. There surely may be reasons for concern that I am not aware of.

[Higgenbotham]

From 60 Minutes:

Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure

Steve Kroft reports on why our roads, bridges, airports and rail are outdated and need to be fixed


The following is a script of "Falling Apart" which aired on Nov. 23, 2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apa ... structure/

I wish in these cases they would take us to an example bridge and show us why it is vulnerable to collapse and then make a prediction as to when it likely will collapse.

Given that a few bridges are collapsing it wouldn't be a surprise if at some point the number of collapsing bridges starts to increase exponentially, due to the fact that many of them were built around the same time.

[John]

> From 60 Minutes:

> Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure

> Steve Kroft reports on why our roads, bridges, airports and rail
> are outdated and need to be fixed

> The following is a script of "Falling Apart" which aired on
> Nov. 23, 2014.

> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apa ... structure/

> I wish in these cases they would take us to an example bridge and
> show us why it is vulnerable to collapse and then make a
> prediction as to when it likely will collapse.

> Given that a few bridges are collapsing it wouldn't be a surprise
> if at some point the number of collapsing bridges starts to
> increase exponentially, due to the fact that many of them were
> built around the same time.

Speaking as someone who tries to make predictions on an almost daily
basis, there are many things that you can predict will happen, without
knowing when.

If you keep piling straw on the camel's back, then you can predict
with 100% certainty that at some point the camel's back will break.
But you cannot predict which will be the straw that breaks the camel's
back.

[Higgenbotham]

Speaking as someone who tries to make predictions on an almost daily
basis, there are many things that you can predict will happen, without
knowing when.

If you keep piling straw on the camel's back, then you can predict
with 100% certainty that at some point the camel's back will break.
But you cannot predict which will be the straw that breaks the camel's
back.

A structural engineer should be able to tell approximately when a bridge will fail based on design principles and looking at the structure.

I'll give an example based on something I know a little more about (admittedly not much though). Let's say we're looking at a boiler that was built according to ASME Code. Rather than talking about how old and delapidated the boiler is, the engineer can go to the Code and find a procedure within the Code that is used to examine the structural integrity of the boiler. The welds can be examined radiographically, the non-welded areas can be inspected for cracks, etc.

Boilers are built with safety factors of approximately 4.5 or so based on the tensile strength of the steel used in their construction. Upon examination, the engineer should be able to tell the approximate existing safety factor. Let's say it is now 2 (that can't be determined with certainty, only approximately, just as using 4.5 for construction is approximate). That won't tell us when it will fail but we can be pretty darn sure that a percentage of structures out there that have a safety factor of 2 will fail within a given year.

I can imagine that examining the structural integrity of bridges can be done in much the same manner. What I would like to hear in that report is something like, "We build bridges to X standard and now have 3000 bridges across the country that are at 40% of X. Given that, we can expect a failure rate of 10% per year. Here is an example of a bridge that falls into this category and why." It would also be useful to have an idea of the rate of decay and what we do know with certainty is that when the factor of safety gets to 1 the bridge is going to fail by definition if it hasn't already. We have no similar reference point for political or financial events.

My guess is they haven't done that and they don't even know.

[Higgenbotham]

This is the type of thing that they do for pressure vessels (boilers being a category of pressure vessels) but I'm not sure how bridges are evaluated. Boilers have a predicted end of life that is revised upon inspection. I'm not sure how much uncertainty there is around that. I'm also not sure if a predicted end of life exists for bridges but I would think yes or theoretically yes (meaning there would be evaluation techniques for determining that, on average, and coming up with a number). There would probably be more uncertainty around that than for boilers.

Pressure vessels should be visually examined on a regular basis throughout their lives for impact marks, scrapes, corrosion, erosion, wear, cracks; anything that changes internal and/or external surfaces of vessels. Each finding should be evaluated for its effect on fatigue life of the vessel. For example, pitting corrosion can greatly increase local stresses and dramatically decrease fatigue life of the vessel. It is good practice to thoroughly examine by visual and appropriate Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) methods the interior and exterior surfaces of the vessel when it has reached 50% of its predicted life. Results of this half-life examination are used to determine if the vessel is in condition for operation to predicted end of life, or to revise predicted end of life.

As the vessel approaches predicted end of life, visual examination should be supplemented by other NDE methods in search for cracks in highly stressed areas of the vessel. The effect of any crack on fatigue life should be evaluated immediately as failure may be imminent. Failure may be a slow leak or may be catastrophic.

http://www.nationalboard.org/Index.aspx ... 164&ID=441

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiographic_testing

This refers to non-destructive testing (or examination methods - NDE).

This also relates to my thought about railway bridges being vulnerable. It would be due to the cycles of vibrations of the trains inducing fatigue in the metal.

[aedens]

Quantum physics: Squeezed ions in two places at once

Nature 521,295–296(21 May 2015)doi:10.1038/521295aPublished online 20 May 2015

Eddy-current testing uses electromagnetic induction to detect flaws in conductive materials.
There are several limitations, among them: only conductive materials can be tested.

Metalurgy cannot predict frequency failure, just the financial probability of liability pools.

Spalling concrete is typical of shear stresses under the surface. I have seen effects and it is a risk model
Washingtom cannot fathom to policy.

Recall of fasteners is almost a oxy moron these days.

Code is a pain in the ass and ignored for financial purposes point blank.

Example, guys blows his face off from backfeeding a device since he was told by management to do it.

Now the future is here to automate it so you can pick up a phone since no one knows how it works but its not at the moment
but we sure as hell put arrows on bi direction systems to cover our ass.

I read these files from all over the planet. Look at TEPCO for instance. Outdated devices build where it never should been

and get ten years in ass pounding prison if you ask questions. Insanity at all levels.


Posner explains the relationship between negligence and strict liability as follows:

The baseline common law regime of tort liability is negligence. When it is a workable regime, because the hazards of an activity can be avoided by being careful (which is to say, nonnegligent), there is no need to switch to strict liability. Sometimes, however, a particular type of accident cannot be prevented by taking care but can be avoided, or its consequences minimized, by shifting the activity in which the accident occurs to another locale, where the risk or harm of an accident will be less..., or by reducing the scale of the activity in order to minimize the number of accidents caused by it.... By making the actor strictly liable—by denying him in other words an excuse based on his inability to avoid accidents by being more careful—we give him an incentive, missing in a negligence regime, to experiment with methods of preventing accidents that involve not greater exertions of care, assumed to be futile, but instead relocating, changing, or reducing (perhaps to the vanishing point) the activity giving rise to the accident... The greater the risk of an accident...and the costs of an accident if one occurs..., the more we want the actor to consider the possibility of making accident-reducing activity changes; the stronger, therefore, is the case for strict liability.

[John]

> A structural engineer should be able to tell approximately when a
> bridge will fail based on design principles and looking at the
> structure.

I'm not so sure about this, Higgie.

Recall the paper that I referenced a few weeks ago:

** How Complex Systems Fail, Richard I. Cook, MD
** Cognitive technologies Laboratory, University of Chicago
** http://GenerationalDynamics.com/gdgraph ... msFail.pdf

Note the following paragraph:

> 3) Catastrophe requires multiple failures – single point failures
> are not enough. The array of defenses works. System operations
> are generally successful. Overt catastrophic failure occurs when
> small, apparently innocuous failures join to create opportunity
> for a systemic accident. Each of these small failures is necessary
> to cause catastrophe but only the combination is sufficient to
> permit failure. Put another way, there are many more failure
> opportunities than overt system accidents. Most initial failure
> trajectories are blocked by designed system safety
> components. Trajectories that reach the operational level are
> mostly blocked, usually by practitioners.

Applying this to the bridge situation, a structural engineer might
evaluate a bridge and decide that there are no significant risks of
catastrophe. But he cannot predict when a "perfect storm" of minor
failures combine in an unexpected way to produce a major catastrophic
failure. I know that's what happens in large software systems.

[aedens]

Higg is correct until my expert spends more than yours.
Another case is they never stop painting and inspections.
Pointless since over 65 million Americans are the workers IN the MIC death cult
and the irony from very old reports from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mufti was we will
toss 65 million in the quest for Allah and his will. No amount of logic will solve common
sense. As we know here we can trend the results to chaos theory most cannot see.

trends that are at the heart of generational forecasting, there are no easy numeric measurements, and you have to use informal methods based on an extensive historical analysis.

On a local political scale we had to capture decades of finance to local contract overpay rot to vett with legal to organize forward
with services available. Point is we got looted locally to pay for decades of decay in Metro. The level of taxpayer services stayed the same.

It came down to this political point. If the fire department came in 8 minutes or 22 minutes what are you willing to pay for that!
The other issues as legacy costs was a separate discussion.
Guess what the State said and what the locals said? As conveyed we prayed to lose and barely did thank God.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-0 ... x-recovery

The older school tells me they are educated idiots to maximize profits and we covered sticky wages....