Day 7 – Chile Earthquake – Concepcion and Talcahuano
Concepcion & Talcahuano
Bldg ID 3-15.1 Talcahuano Steel Mill (CAP Acero) (36⁰ 44′ 53″, 73⁰ 07′ 40″)
Today, we went to the steel mill, about a 20 minute drive from our hotel into the industrial section of Talcahuano. The campus was quite large with numerous structures including a dock to load/unload materials from transport ships. The steel mill structure, approximately 200 feet tall, towered over all the other structures at the site. After an approximate 45 minute wait (it was very busy), we were escorted to the engineering building and met with the chief engineer, who spent a generous amount of time showing pictures of damage throughout the facility to us. We found out that the steel mill produces steel wide flanges, angles, plates, rebar and other miscellaneous steel elements. They produce approximately 1.5 million tons of steel annually for the country; none of the steel products are exported.
We first headed to one of the support buildings which contained large ovens and smoke stacks. The building has steel transverse moment frames and longitudinal brace frames. There was a significant collapse at one end near a conveyor. The smoke stack connections were very large and some of the bolts appeared to have sheared off or loosened from the base plate. About halfway up one stack, there were signs of buckling at one edge. Earthquake damage also occurred in the battered piles and at the cranes in the shipyard loading dock. The piles had complete shear failures with daylight showing through the connections. Some of the cranes dislodged from their tracks and shifted over approximately 36” laterally. We next headed to the large steel mill structure. From the exterior of the structure (we were not allowed inside), it appeared that the structural system is a combination of steel moment frames and brace frames. The large built-up columns were approximately 9’-0”x3’-0”; the flanges were made up with W36 wide flange sections. The structure did not appear to have any major damage from the earthquake. A conveyor bridge connecting to the south edge of the mill sustained heavy damage and is out of service.
Miscellaneous Structures – Bridges
We made it over to a series of bridges on day 6 to get a closer look and observe the damage. One of the more modern concrete highway bridges connecting the older and newer neighborhoods had a localized collapse. It appeared that one end was unseated and fell off the supports. A temporary bridge structure placed over the top of the collapsed portion allowed traffic to continue through. There was a large amount of displacement at the ground level near the columns. The Old Bridge across the river Bio Bio had a series of slab collapses near the mid-span of the bridge. It also appeared the slab had slipped off the concrete pier supports. The bridge abutment was also damaged significantly from the earthquake.
Degenkolb Reconnaissance Team 1 (above)
Left to Right: Roger Para, James Liu, Anuj Bansal, local guide, David Gonzalez
This is our last day in Chile. We are leaving Chile tomorrow morning. Hope you enjoyed the blogs. We will have much more to discuss when are back in the States. Our 2nd team will be arriving in Concepcion on 3/17/10.
