In Espoo, a bridge collapsed in the spring, carrying dozens of children and their teachers. The Accident Investigation Center (Otkes) is investigating the case and informed that they cannot give official recommendations about the bridge accident because there is no responsible authority.
So the situation is such that no authority is responsible for bridges built by municipalities. The authority's task would be to define the regulations on the basis of which the object is planned and implemented, to give more detailed instructions for the type of structure in question and to monitor that they are followed.
As a result of this lack of authority, problems often arise, as examples are several bridge projects ordered by cities and municipalities and the most recent is the Espoo crash bridge. A similar situation is also in the bridges built by some government agencies.
The background of the insufficient legislation may be the idea that the public developer knows how to set the requirements to a sufficient level. This may have been the case decades ago. Structures and their design have become more complicated in recent decades, and on the other hand, many municipalities and agencies acting as clients have reduced their own structural engineering expertise.
In building construction, the roles of the authorities are clear: the Ministry of the Environment acts as the issuer of regulations and the municipal building control authorities issue building permits based on the regulations, check the qualifications of designers and supervise the implementation of projects. In the case of the Finnish Railways Agency, official activities are secondary, although the authority is certainly found, because the Finnish Railways Agency, as the customer, can set the bar as high as it wants and this is precisely what it does.
In addition to bridges, harbor structures, breakwaters and retaining walls will also be abandoned by the authorities. In principle, we already have legislation: "The decree of the Ministry of the Environment on load-bearing structures" already requires compliance with certain regulations "when their possible damage may cause a danger to personal safety". The problem is that the structures listed above do not fall under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment.
The safety of structures can be improved in many different ways: by making the use of a certain design and implementation system mandatory, by requiring a certain qualification from the designers, or by requiring an external inspection of the plans and certification of the quality control of the implementation. The inspection outside the plans has been used in the most demanding projects in house construction for ten years and it has achieved a significant improvement in the quality of the plans. At the same time, the professionalism of the designers has developed as information is transferred from one engineering firm to another.
At least structural calculations should be required for each structure or structure, the possible damage of which may cause a danger to personal safety, and in the most demanding projects, they should also be checked by an external inspector.
It is not realistic to require all structures to be subject to official supervision. It is inevitable that some structures of industrial plants remain outside the regulation, for example silos, tanks, chimneys and crane beams. They do not always require a permit and they are part of the industrial plant's process more than load-bearing structures. However, the problem is not very big because EU-level legislation is sufficient for them, such as the Machinery Directive and the Construction Products Regulation.
The European standardization organization CEN has prepared a set of standards suitable for almost all types of load-bearing structures, which is also currently used in Finland in house construction and in the Väylävirasto's bridges and other structures. The standards set requirements for the accuracy of construction work and guide the design and dimensioning of structures. It would be natural to demand the use of the same set of standards for other load-bearing structures as well.
Official homelessness is not only a Finnish phenomenon, but a similar situation exists in many European countries. However, that doesn't mean that you should settle for the situation.
The simplest improvement proposal would be to expand the Ministry of the Environment's mission to all structures and structures when their possible damage may cause a danger to personal safety and to delimit those structures that fall under the administration of another ministry.
Auli Lastunen
Construction industry RT's Eurocode expert
Teemu Tiainen
Special expert of the Steel Structure Association
The article was published in Rakennuslehti on August 21.8.2023, XNUMX.
Teemu Tiainen
Specialist
teemu.tiainen@rt.fi +358 50 470 1436Rakennustuoteollisuus RTT ry, Teräsrakennyhdistys ry
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