You are correct. The bending changes the microscopic crystal structure in the steel and would be a weak point. You'd have to completely redo the heat treatment to get it back to normal and at that point you're essentially scrapping the bridge and using new steel, which is exactly what they're gonna do because they're not idiots like Musk
I am just a random guy and even I know that reusing 50-year-old materials that were bent and submerged in salt water is probably not a good idea.
Ditto.
We're all better engineers than Elon Musk.
InevitableSwing PhD aka Science Guy aka The Mad SCi-Rhymer aka I'm just a guy but I still know more than Elon.
You are correct. The bending changes the microscopic crystal structure in the steel and would be a weak point. You'd have to completely redo the heat treatment to get it back to normal and at that point you're essentially scrapping the bridge and using new steel, which is exactly what they're gonna do because they're not idiots like Musk
It's fresh water (Patapsco River), but yeah.