The Hojack Swing Bridge, a hundred year old landmark just outside of Rochester in upstate New York, was declared an obstruction to navigation by the United States Coast Guard and demolished in the fall of 2012 after a decade long protest lead by the group called SOB (Save Our Bridge). SOB argued that the bridge was a beautiful landmark and could be repurposed, but to no avail. A section of a solid steel, round head, riveted butt joint and a six-inch long fastener from the bridge were preserved by an acquaintance of the authors. This paper will detail the results of their metallurgical and structural analysis and attempts to answer the question, once and for all, should the Hojack Swing Bridge have been demolished, re-purposed, and/or preserved as a state/national landmark.

Ronald J. Parrington, P.E., FASM

Ronald J. Parrington, P.E., FASM is the Director of Industrial Services and a Senior Managing Consultant at Engineering Systems Inc. (ESi).  Ron is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with BS and MS degrees in Materials Engineering. He has over 40 years of experience in failure analysis of metallic and nonmetallic materials, has presented and published numerous papers on failure analysis, teaches ASM courses (Principles of Failure Analysis, Practical Fractography, Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, and Intro to Polymers), is past chairman of the ASM International Failure Analysis Committee, a founding member of the ASM International Failure Analysis Society, and the past chairman and a trustee emeritus of the ASM Materials Education Foundation Board of Trustees.

Registration

Register for the Wednesday, February 24th, 5:00 p.m. virtual meeting at www.mnasm.org with your name, company, and email address by Tuesday, February 23rd. A link to join the virtual meeting will be emailed to registered attendees on February 23rd.

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