Any one of a dozen reasons could explain why huge high-strength
steel rods -- 9 to 24 feet long -- on the new Bay Bridge
snapped. But there are no excuses for allowing the fasteners to
break in the first place, say two California metallurgical
engineers.  "There are plenty of explanations as to why steel
behaves in a brittle way, but there are no excuses to have them
behave in a brittle way," said veteran UC Berkeley materials
sciences professor Tom Devine. "We simply know too much about
these processes for that to be the case."  The rod failures
could have been prevented, agreed Newport Beach-based private
engineering consultant Louis Raymond. Raymond was chairman for
20 years of the ASTM International's subcommittee on hydrogen
embrittlement, the steel industry's standards and testing
protocol group.  "There is a lot of technology out there that
could have been used to prevent this from happening," said
Raymond, referring broadly to a wide range of steel materials,
coatings and production methods.  But thes