So what about that “sophisticated computer model?”

UPDATE 8/6:   Confirmed that this is it.

According to the Strib:

NTSB investigators will use a sophisticated computer model program, updated by a former University of Minnesota student, to try to extrapolate how the bridge failed, [NTSB Chair] Rosenker said.

I’ve been noodling around the journal indexes trying to find a publication that describes the computer model.  I heard the model described on MPR yesterday by a caller who claimed to have worked with the model in a course at the University of Minnesota.  He clarified a point that I haven’t seen reported in the news media — that the computer model that Rosenker is talking about is a model developed specifically for the I-35W bridge that collapsed.  It’s not just a generic bridge-modeling program — it’s a model of that bridge. 

I haven’t found any information about the 35W bridge, but I did find an article about a project that sounded related, so I’ll throw it out here in case it helps anyone else who’s looking for the info.  Berglund EM and Schultz AE, "Girder Differential Deflection and Distortion-Induced Fatigue in Skewed Steel Bridges," J. Bridge Engineering (2006) v.11 no. 2 p.169, describes a project funded by MnDOT that modeled a bridge at I-94 and I-694.  It involved measurements of stresses as well as finite-element modeling of that specific bridge.  A pdf of the government final report is here. 

Note that this bridge is different from the 35W Mississippi bridge and so the details are probably quite different, but I wonder if the two studies were part of the same 1995 MnDOT funded research project and if they use the same modeling procedure.

UPDATE.  I think maybe this is it?  UPDATED ABOVE, yes.