COLLAPSE OF TEXAS TOWER NO. 4 257 



EMBEDMENT OF LEGS ON TOWER NO. 4 MORE THAN ADEQUATE 



Mr. RuTLEDGE. Towers No. 2 and No. 3 have no underwater brac- 

 ing, sir, and the legs have to be held or fixed against rotation by the 

 sand gripping them around the bottom, like I'm holding the pencil 

 and pushing on the top. 



Here the bracing prevents the rotation — the truss prevents the rota- 

 tion of the legs, and the embedment has to resist only a horizontal push 

 of the waves. 



The depth of the embedment was quite adequate for that. 



Senator Saltonstall. So that the depth under the ground, in your 

 opinion, was satisfactory? 



Mr. RuTLEDGE. Yes, sir. 



Senator Saltonstall. To carry out the design? 



Mr. RuTLEDGE. Yes, sir. 



Senator Saltonstall. Thank you. 



Senator Stennis. Thank you, Senator. 



Mrs. Smith? 



Senator Smith. Mr. Chairman, I think my questions will be 

 answered through the questioning of counsel, and I yield to him. 



Senator Stennis. I yield back to the counsel, and you may proceed, 

 Mr. Counsel. 



type of connection for the braces immaterial to use of kuss 



PATENT 



Mr. Kendall. Mr. Kuss, in your tip-over method of erection, I 

 believe that it was necessary to use pin connections ; is that correct ? 



Mr. Kuss. No, sir. 



Mr. Kendall. Could you have used a welded connection in your 

 tip-over method? 



Mr. Kuss. Yes. As far as the patent is concerned, any kind of 

 a connection could have been used. 



Mr. KJENDALL. We have had testimony here to the effect that the 

 use of welds raised the probability that upon the tip-over, the thing 

 would fly apart or break ; is that correct ? 



Mr. Kuss. There is no foundation to that. 



Mr. Kendall. Wliat was the determining factor in using the pin 

 connections ? 



Mr. Kuss. We used the pin connections for several reasons. In 

 the first place, a pin connection is pretty standard for all big trusses, 

 such as for railroad bridges and structures of that type, of unusual 

 size. 



Welded connections, if we did want to use them, would have to be 

 much larger in dimension and be rigid. 



Now, that rigidity causes what we call secondary stresses. In other 

 words, there would be bending in the connections at the ends. For a 

 fine type of structure like this, we thought that secondary bending 

 should be eliminated. Any extra stresses we would get by welding 

 would be in welded details. 



Now, the other reason for the pins is that the stresses in the mem- 

 bers are much more accurately determinable with pins because it re- 

 duces a great nmnber of imknowns in the structure, so that we can 

 compute the stresses much more accurately. 



