EVANSTON, Ill. — Civil engineer David Corr of Northwestern University is available to discuss the pedestrian bridge in Miami, Fla., that collapsed on March 15 — just days after installation.
David Corr is a clinical associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. He studies structural engineering, failure analysis and forensic engineering.
Quote from Professor David Corr:
“Failures in major engineered structures like the pedestrian footbridge collapse in Miami are terrifying events, but it’s important to remember that they are also exceptionally rare. Technology, layers of redundancy, oversight and improvements in construction techniques all work together to ensure high levels of safety to the public.
“When failures do occur, the engineering and construction community learns valuable lessons to ensure they never occur the same way or for the same reasons again. In spite of past lessons, with humanity’s desire for structures that span farther and reach taller, unforeseen limits are still unfortunately encountered on rare instances like this one. In the coming weeks and months, the engineering community will learn from this failure as well, and all of our future structures will become safer as a result.”
Corr can be reached at 847-467-0890 (office) and [email protected].
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