Bending of Belmadi1

For Classroom Discussion only

“We have completed the project and submitted our bills. Your officers are finding only excuses for
not passing the bills for payment. Please use your good offices so that they stop this harassment.
You know lot of our money is tied up in this project. The bridge is absolutely safe and the stress
tests prove it without doubt” said Sebastian Sinha. He came to plead his case with Surendra Belmadi
who is the chairman of the Bridge Construction Corporation of India (BCCI). Even though Belmadi is
non-executive chairman of the corporation, he being a political appointee, wields substantial
influence in the organization. Sebastian is referring to a bridge constructed on a major river in South
India. He is the managing director of Krishna-Kaveri Infrastructure Company Ltd. (KKICL), which has
executed the project. KKICL fought bitterly for the project and had to bid very low in order to get
the L1 (lowest bidder) status. Sebastian and Surendra knew each other for many years and go back
to their student days in the Doon School.

“Sebby (that was how he was known in Doon School), our corporation is known for timely payments
to the contractors. While I don’t want to influence our technical people, I will see what is holding
this up” replied Belmadi.

He called for a meeting of the Senior Engineer-in-Chief in the afternoon to enquire the status of
these bills. The Senior EnC explained that there are some issues with respect to the quality control,
especially with respect to the stress tests and Dhanvin, the Chief Engineer responsible for quality
control will be able to explain better. They arranged for a meeting with Dhanvin on the following
day.

They had all met the next day and Dhanvin explained that they are in the process of starting the
stress tests. He explained that the testing required a number of “deflectometers” and these are
being obtained from different branch offices. He also said that the testing can be started within a
week since they managed to obtain sufficient number of deflectometers over the past month.
Belmadi said, “I thought the testing is done based on taking core samples from the structure and
analysing the cores. What is all this about deflectometers”? He was suspicious that this is a ruse to
unnecessarily delay the payment. Dhanvin explained the entire process of testing, explaining that
this is the standard way of obtaining the stress values. The process, as explained by Dhanvin is
presented in the Appendix.

Belmadi commented that these stress values, whichever way obtained, are only samples and they
are, like all samples, are unreliable. Dhanvin corrected saying that Belmadi probably meant
“uncertainty associated with the sample” and not really meant “unreliable”.

Belmadi insisted that, whichever language is used (unreliable vs. uncertainty) the office will have to
provide enough margin to account for the sampling. He said, “You know, I was talking to my
neighbours daughter last night. She just completed her MBA from one of the renowned institutions
in the country. She was mentioning to me that this issue can be resolved by what is called
‘hypothesis testing’. She was suggesting that we should test something called null hypothesis by
stating that the mean is greater than what was specified in the tender documents and compare it
____________________________

1
Vishnuprasad Nagadevara, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore,
Based on the Report, “Structural Load Testing and Flexure Analysis of The Route 701 Bridge in Louisa County,
Virginia”, Jeremy Lucas et. al., Virginia Transportation Research Council, Charlottesville, Virginia, June 2004
with the sample mean. If the sample mean is greater than what was specified, then we can go
ahead and release the money to Krishna-Kaveri. She also said something about accepting the
hypothesis even if the sample mean is marginally less than what was specified. She was talking
about something like one-sided test. I don’t know if being one-sided is good or bad. I did not
understand most of it anyway, but I am sure you know how to do this so called hypothesis test.
What was the stress value specified in our tender”?

Dhanvin said that he knows all about the one-sided hypothesis test and that the specified value for
the safety of commuters was 87 kips (A kip is an Imperial unit of force, equals 1000 pounds-force,
used primarily by American architects and engineers to measure engineering loads. It is occasionally
also considered a unit of weight, equal to 1000 pounds, i.e., one half of a short ton).

1. Set up a one sided null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis statement.

Appendix

The test using deflectometers is non-destructive evaluation to determine the extent of flaws and
load testing to assess the structural capacity of a bridge.

Through field testing, deflections of the bridge under different truck loads were recorded. During
various stages of testing, the truck was left empty, partially loaded, or fully loaded. Normalized
deflections under the truckloads were used to determine if there was a linear relationship between
load and displacement. Using the truck’s weight and dimensions, the applied moment was
calculated and compared to the theoretical nominal moment capacity of the bridge. The recorded
deflections were used to determine the dynamic load allowance of the bridge.

The sensors were calibrated to the nearest 0.003 in. Deflection sensors, were placed on the bridge at
mid-span of the span corresponding to test lanes. The deflectometers were bolted to anchors in the
concrete through the sensor’s base plate. The deflectometers were pre-deflected approximately
0.75 in to allow for relaxation in the deflectometers as the slab displaced downward. The sensors
were connected through separate channels to the data acquisition system.

Three test lanes were used to orient the truck on the bridge. Test Lane 1 was on the southern or
downstream side of the bridge. The outermost wheel line was located 1 ft from the base of the
parapet. This lane orientation is to coincide with the design lane for a slab beam which calls for a
wheel line 1 ft from face of curb. Three deflectometers were located under this lane, one at the
center of each wheel line and one corresponding to the center of the truck. Test Lane 2 was located
on the upstream side of the bridge. The outermost wheel line was also located 1 ft off the base of
the upstream side curb. One deflectometer was located under the outer most wheel line. Test Lane
3 was along the centerline of the bridge; with the wheel lines located 3 ft 6 in off either side of the
centerline. Two deflectometers were situated on this lane.

See the figures below for further understating of the procedure.

Deflectometer place under the bridge

Truck Load Design