Maverick44 wrote:Well it looked rusty to me. It def had some help breaking off. Rust is a weakness in metal no matter what type of rust it is. Rust is simply rust.
Um, that is not true. You may want to do due diligence before passing your opinions off as fact. As the son of a 42 year retired veteran of the steel industry, I happen to know quite a bit about steel (yes, I'm originally from western PA, the home of US Steel). Also, my grandpa was a steel worker for the railroad industry in the early 20th century after he got back from WWI.
COR-TEN steel is a trademark registered product of United States Steel Corporation. It was developed in the 1930’s, mostly to use in railroad coal cars. It is a special blend of steel alloys that, when exposed to weather, develop a thin, protective rust layer that coats and protects the metal. Some of its early use in civil engineering projects in the 1960’s gave way to architectural uses not long after.
It was an ideal choice for the New River Gorge Bridge because it solved a couple of problems. The expense of painting such a large structure would have been cost-prohibitive. Using COR-TEN not only saved $300,000 in construction costs, but also an estimated $1,000,000 every time the Bridge would have had to been painted.
I got that from
here but was familiar with COR-TEN well before that article.
So while that has nothing to do with this tragic accident, I wanted to give my 2 cents. Opinions are always welcome but they should be construed as opinions.