Root causes

One single pin, the right stub axle, was responsible for holding the walkway in
place. At the right stub axle on the foot of the structure, the axle is welded to a
collar. This collar connects to other components that support the structure.
When investigating the metallurgical aspects of the structure, it is clear why the
structure failed at this point. The weld between the axle and the collar had large
airgaps at the centre of the weld meaning the contact surface between the axle
and the collar was reduced, concentrating stresses on a smaller area, this is
known as incomplete penetration, as the weld material has not filled the join
between the surfaces at the root of the joint (Weld Guru, 2016 ). There were also
many impurities present in the structure reducing the quality of the weld
material. Air gaps present in the weld again cause structural weakness.
It can be seen that the welding process has failed to join the layers of weld metal
together, resulting in a condition known as lack of fusion. This appears as a thin
crack in the cross-section and at its edges can cause the crack to propagate.
(Weld Guru, 2016)
Where the welding is exposed to the environment, it can be seen that the weld
has been sanded down or cut away as it has either been considered an
obstruction or it has been taken away to improve its appearance. Removing the
part of the weld that is arced to produce a perpendicular angle at the join of the
two materials results in stresses being placed at the join of the surfaces instead
of being distributed along the arc. This gives more reason for the weld to fail.
The bending moment placed on the foot was not considered and so the foot was
not designed to withstand bending moments, and so when the foot has been
subjected to these forces, its design has prevented it from withstand these
forces.
In the stress analysis of the structure, the FoS was miscalculated to be 1000x
smaller than it actually was. This is due to the calculations only considering the
best case scenario, being the smallest load exerted on the supports instead.
Lloyds calculated the FoS to be around 0.8, which should have immediately
raised concerns, however, this was overlooked as the design of the structure
continued.
The actual FoS has been calculated to be 0.05 for the welding in the foot and
0.12 for the axle, indicating it is most likely to be the welded parts to fail first.
When designing the walkway, it was decided that it would be a cantilever beam
that connects to the ferry allowing passengers to board. However, the
accessibility to the structure for maintenance was not considered and so the
structure could not be examined for any faults that may have occurred since its
installation due to the fact it was suspended above the sea.
It was also not considered that the foot must also be able to roll, without this
motion, the foot was subject to horizontal forces causing fatigue in the steel.
There was no evidence of maintenance checks for fatigue, creep, fractures or
erosion, which should be checked for routinely due to the exposure to salt water
and weathering.

When prosecuted, Lloyds register of shipping pleaded guilty to failing to ensure

the safety of the passengers by checking equipment. (Independent, Jan 1997)
There were also no fail safes in the design to ensure that if there was a failure,
the walkway would not collapse completely onto the lower deck of the pontoon.
And so, when the disaster struck, there was nothing put in place to stop the
walkway completely collapsing.
As for the operation, there was found to be very poor communication between
the designers, fabricators and those installing the walkway. They also did not hire
the appropriate engineers, as the lead engineer had been retired and was not
working enough hours a month to be considered sufficient for the job.
Mr Hugh Carlisle, Head of Quality Control told the jury at the trail for port
Ramsgate, ''It was an accident waiting to happen and it happened earlier rather
than later because of poor welding.
( Herald Scotland, Feb 1997)