For centuries, engineers have come up with great new ideas and leveraged them to build stronger, better, lighter, longer, taller, and more beautiful bridges.
Throughout history, some design and procedural innovations have gone wrong, leading to serious structural problems, failures, collapses, and even deaths. Many bridges that seemed like great ideas on the drawing board and in the planning process failed during construction or soon thereafter. This article examines engineering and design concepts, and construction procedures, that led to these problems. …