A design engineer who failed to double-check his team’s calculations while building a section of PIE viaduct, and then did nothing to rectify the errors, was sentenced to about one year and nine-and-a-half months’ jail on Mon. Robert Arianto Tjandra, the project’s QP, was also ordered to pay a fine of S$10,000 in a district court. His team’s calculations were likely to result in part of the viaduct being unable to support the loads it needed to bear. On July 14, 2017, two of the temporary concrete structures — called corbels — supporting that section gave way. The high-profile collapse resulted in the death of 31-year-old Chinese national Chen Yinchuan who was working at the site. Ten other workers suffered varying degrees of injuries, including spinal and pelvis fractures. They had been working on the deck slab supported by the two corbels. Some of the permanent corbels were so inadequate that they would not have supported more than half of the total load that they were intended to carry.... Continue Reading
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