...simple bridge truss was the first structure I ever analyzed. The simple combination of beams that could hold cars, trains, and trucks over long spans of water fascinated me. Having the tools to analyze the loads on the truss further increased my interest in structures. I encountered the bridge in a textbook for my first engineering class. Knowing that the professor, Mr. John Doe, was a tough teacher, I asked him for the textbook so I could study and get ready for the class over the summer. Just arrived from Belize, I was determined to succeed. In class we learned about forces on simple members and then we put the members together to form a simple truss. At this point I had almost decided that structural engineering was the career for me. From there the class just took off: We went on to frames, distributed loads, considered friction; basically we were incorporating real world considerations into structural members. I loved the practical, problem solving aspects of the field. At UC my classes were even more advanced. In my analysis and design classes, I especially enjoyed studying steel design because we not only learned the use of the load resistance factor design but also applied that knowledge — I designed a four-story building. The professor was a practicing engineer, and he always related the subject to real life steel structures he had engineered, for example, the SB Medical Center, an all steel building with a base isolated campus. This is the kind of project on...
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...become an understatement to solely say “things have changed.” Among all these extravagant developments comes the marvel of the bridge. It's safe to say that even centuries ago, the early humans must have created bridges from the simple material they found surrounding them in their all natural environment. Whether it was a 3 by 10 foot log they had so carefully placed across the water way, or piles of smaller wood, closely intertwined and lined by the strongest of branches, the primal people had found a way to gather and hunt across streams and rivers. As the years and population had increased, so had the development and appearance of the bridge. Because of great urbanization and city growth, there was a high demand for a solution to travel in a quicker and more efficient way. One of the cities that rapidly boomed was Chicago, now the third most populous city in the United States. This growth mostly had to do with the rail road and the Chicago River. Because Chicago was fortunate enough to have a natural waterway entwined in the city, it was essential to begin the building of bridges throughout. As architects and engineers from all over gathered to create bridges both beautiful and useful, the city of Chicago continued to grow. Although used by millions of people each year, most Chicago natives and tourist fail to see the true importance of the bridges in this beautiful city. Overlooked is the importance of the...
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...BRIDGES A bridge is a structure providing passage over an obstacle without closing the way beneath. The required passage may be for a road, a railway, pedestrians, a canal or a pipeline. The obstacle to be crossed may by a river, a road, railway or a valley. History The first bridges were made by nature itself—as simple as a log fallen across a stream or stones in a river. The first bridges made by humans were probably spans of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support and crossbeam arrangement. Some early Americans used trees or bamboo poles to cross small caverns or wells to get from one place to another. A common form of lashing sticks, logs, and deciduous branches together involved the use of long reeds or other harvested fibers woven together to form a connective rope capable of binding and holding together the materials used in early bridges. Dating to the Greek Bronze Age (13th century BC), it is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence and use. Several intact arched stone bridges from the Hellenistic era can be found in the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The greatest bridge builders of antiquity were the ancient Romans. The Romans built arch bridges and aqueducts that could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy earlier designs. Some stand today. An example is the Alcantara Bridge, built over the river Tagus, in Spain. The Romans also used cement, which reduced the variation of strength found in natural stone...
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...Truss Bridge Project Research Paper Our class has been assigned a project about the history and structure of Truss Bridges.In order for us to become more familiar and have a better understanding about truss bridges, we had do to some research.While there is a lot of logical engineering that goes into building a truss bridge,our teacher has instructed us to research 2 types of engineering behind the building of truss bridges and answer a few questions about our bridge.The two types we were told to look up and learn about were geotechnical engineering and materials engineering,both of which none of us had ever heard of.As for the geotechnical engineering,we we were to research the environmental and geological factors that should be considered...
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...The BB was the first bridge of its kind ever to be built in the early 19th century. It has braved many elements and has stood the test of time and humanity. It is the first suspension bridge to use galvanized steel as cable wires and trusses. The suspension system was originally designed in iron, but later replaced due to irons dead load weight. The four cables are each nearly 16 inches in diameter and each contains over 5,000 galvanized steel, oil-coated wires. Also the first a dangerous underwater device called Caisson (Inside the caissons, air pressure was used to keep water out of the boxed structure used by workers to excavate the river bottom. Men used shovels, picks, and later blasting to dig out the sand and rocks below and the caissons gradually descended towards the river bottom). After they had been lowered 20 meters, they had to dig/blast their way another 30 meters to find a base strong enough to carry the weight of the bridge. Granite stones were added to form the towers were 276.5ft. At one point they were taller then all skyscrapers of that time to stand as a monument of the two cities. The diagonal cables that run down from the towers which are called “cable stays” purpose was to stiffen the bridge was later fund unnecessary but they were kept for its architectural beauty contribution. "To guard against vertical and horizontal oscillations and to ensure that degree of stiffness in the flooring which is absolutely necessary to meet the effects of violent...
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...Wharton1 David Wharton Dr. Northcutt ENG 1020-04 April 10, 2012 “What a Beautiful Bridge” In the writing of A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway employs symbolism in many forms. Hemingway uses water in various states throughout the progression of the novel such as the use of rain and rivers to symbolize life and love as well as death and danger. Hemingway uses symbols to allude to the events that will occur in the coming chapters of the novel if the reader is keen to heed them. Hemingway’s use of the “bridge” and the rivers they cross, represent the lives of people and the hazards people encounter when they approach and cross a bridge in an effort to reach what is waiting on the other side. The novel opens with a beautiful description of life and of living our lives. “In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels”(3). Life’s river bottom is littered with small problems and with large problems. When things are going well, our lives are blue skies and sunshine and we are eager to have life pass rapidly. Hemingway is making a stand on the political atmosphere that was prevalent in America in the late 1920’s and one which can be applied in contemporary America as well. I must Wharton2 disagree with Thomas P. McDonnell, who wrote in an article for the...
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...|Spaghetti Bridge | Abstract For this assignment our task was to build as a group a spaghetti bridge with the objective of carrying the most weight as possible using only spaghetti and hot glue, meeting the specifications. The bridges will be loaded until they fall. After testing to destruction, the bridges loading capacity was 14.4kg, with an initial mas of 0.840kg. This gave a weight to strength ratio of 17.1 putting the group at 4th/8th position in class. From this it was learned the bridge held 14.4kg which is 140N therefore one Truss held 70N. These calculations helped us understand how our bridge coped with the forces and helped us answer the question of what caused our bridge to fail and where our bridge failed? Contents Abstract ii Introduction 1 Background 2 Analysis 3 Design 5 Methodology 5 Calculations 6 Newton’s laws: 6 Forces on the bridge 6 Stability: 6 Truss analysis 6 Structural stability of Final Bridge: 7 Testing: 7 Simulation: 7 Results: 8 Bridge failure analysis: 8 Spaghetti beams: 8 Conclusion 9 Limitations 10 Recommendations 11 List of References 12 Appendix 14 Spaghetti Bridge Activity Report 14 Group productivity and progress 18 Further Calculations 19 Introduction For this assignment the aim is to research and construct a spaghetti bridge in a group consisting of six members with the objective...
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...Hello, today I will be talking about different types of bridges! There are 6 general types of bridges and we will talk about all of the types of bridges there are. Now, we believe that there are five main types of bridges to begin with. These types are beam, truss, arch, cantilever, and suspension. First, we will talk about beam bridges. Now, beam bridges are very basic bridge constructions that have pieces on each end of the bridge. These types of frequently use leg supports to distribute the load equally throughout the whole bridge. Different types of beam bridges are girder bridges and box girder bridges. Beam bridges work a lot like a log overlapping two sides of a ravine. Famous beam bridge, the 7 Mile Bridge in the Florida keys. Next,...
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...will provide the reader with basic knowledge on how bridges work. This research document centers on suspension bridges and how it manages to carry different pressure. After reading this research document, the readers can understand more about what the purposes of each part are, and how each part of the suspension bridge works together. In this research document, the intended audiences or readers are the Civil Engineering students. Through this research, Civil Engineering students can receive more additional knowledge and information that are important in their selected area. This research is important to Civil Engineering students, because in the future when they graduate and become a license Engineer, they will work on infrastructures including bridges. To create a safe and well-constructed bridge, Engineers shall know what are its parts and how the bridge works. Introduction to Process Suspension bridge is a type of bridge that can be defined already from the name itself, it suspends or debars the roadway through the cables or metal chains from tall towers. These towers bear or hold almost all the weight as pressure presses down on the deck of the suspension bridge, and the pressure goes up to the cables to transfer pressure to the towers. The towers also are connected to the piers that allow the pressure to flow to the ground. Bridge has two types of parts. First is the superstructure; it talks about the upper part of the bridge it includes the deck, towers, and the cables. The...
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...To Brooklyn Bridge" is the opening section of Hart Crane's most famous poem, The Bridge. Crane's masterpiece is one of the most beautiful and influential American literary works of the first half of the 20th century. It is a poem that defies easy description, at once mystical, romantic, bewildering, witty, secretive, and soaring. That's a lot of adjectives, but as you'll soon see, Crane loves adjectives. Crane labels "To Brooklyn Bridge" a prelude, or "Proem," that will introduce the themes of The Bridge. And if we had to slap a big ol' English AP-test theme word on the whole poem, it would be "Unity," or even, "Mystic Unity." With the whole "Unity" idea, Crane is taking a cue from Walt Whitman, the great 19th-century American poet whose "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" was a direct influence on The Bridge. For Crane, as for Whitman, Brooklyn Bridge is a symbol of a manmade structure that can join together the fractured parts of society. The Brooklyn Bridge was finished in 1883. At that time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, an architectural and engineering marvel. For Crane, the bridge provides a symbol for the possibility of redeeming the modern world from the chains of money and commerce. Published in 1930, The Bridge was panned by many for being too darned difficult and wordy. We'll say it straight up: this poem, like much of Crane's work, is incredibly difficult in the sense of, "What the heck is this guy even talking about?" But the payoff is worth it, because...
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...Truss Bridge As said by Ed Grabianowski, “Although the general physics of bridge-building have been established for thousands of years, every bridge presents complicated factors that must be taken into consideration, such as the geology of the surrounding area, the amount of traffic, weather and construction materials.”. When building a bridge an engineer must consider all possible factors that may affect the bridge. Normal environmental factors such as changes temperature, precipitation, and winds must be taken under consideration. Along with environmental factors that are beyond normal weather conditions, factors such as sudden gusts of wind and earthquakes. Environmental factors also known as environmental loads are loads induced by external...
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...Explore the ways in which Arthur Miller presents the relationship between Eddie and Catherine in ‘ A View From The Bridge’. How does it create dramatic tension for the audience? ‘A View from the Bridge’ is set in 1950s America in an Italian-American neighbourhood under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Brooklyn is a very poor area. It is a corrupt society in which laws are not obeyed and many people have a low social status. The vast majority of Brooklyn’s population was Sicilian. Brooklyn is described by Alfieri, the narrator, as the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge. To the audience, the bridge not only shows the poor separated from the rich but a symbol of hope for the people living in Brooklyn as the city of New York is a place of dreams because there was work, security and accommodation but most importantly wealth. During the 1950s, much of Europe was completely destroyed due to the Second World War. Italy, with its corrupt ruler, had been one of the worst hit countries during the war, as they suffered huge amounts of damage in Northern towns and villages by the Germans who took revenge after they had become allies with the British. The economy had rapidly gone down and so this left many Sicilian Italians with no choice but to leave and migrate to the dream city of New York. They were called ‘submarines’ by many Americans as they moved from one place to another just to get American citizenship. In this case, the audience see that Eddie will do...
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...Problems: * Great in Length * 1,000 Feet approaches * Each end had these approaches which in turn added to the already towering distance of the bridge * Very Narrow * Center Span 2,800 Feet * The center span was the most narrow bridge of it kind * Traffic Congestion * One lane traffic in each direction * Location * Narrowing Valley served as wind tunnel * Environmental Constraints Overlooked * Wind gust create wind tunnel effect * Key structural components * Open girders substituted for solid girders * Critical structural design factors * Staic vs. dynamic * Load +bulk & mass (wind effects) * Last Minute Decisions * Local engineer substituted key structural components Solutions: * Shorten the approaches * Shortens the length of the bridge * Widen the center span * Creates more mass and bulk * Lessens the Narrow effect * Double or triple the traffic lanes in each direction * Allows traffic to flow more smoothly even if a vehicle is blocking a lane * Allows for future maintenance * Less down time for bridge traffic * Research team to survey the area for wind velocity * Velocity plays a huge role in determining a beneficial placement for the bridge * Possible better locations with less possible problems * Research team to predict highest possible wind velocity to determine mass needed to sustain * This prediction can allow for contingency...
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...The collapse of the Tacoma Narrow Bridge was a disaster back in the 1940 that is still known to many today. Many physicists have attributed the collapse of the bridge to forced resonance of the mechanical oscillator – where the wind has provided a source of periodic frequency that has tallied the natural frequency of the bridge. (Scanlan, 1990) In fact, there were multiple arguments that have led physicists to conclude that the tragedy was a result of resonance. Although this reasoning has existed for the past few decades and was agreed by physicists, many engineers have found out that such argument was mischaracterised. One of the reasons was that the frequency of the bridge (under 42 mph wind) was 1Hz, which was not close to the actual frequency (0.2Hz) observed during the tragedy. The Van Karman Vortex Street would not be able to result in resonant behaviour on the day of the collapse. There are many more arguments that were supported by different physicists and in this paper, these explanations will be highlighted and evaluated. Some physicists have come up with an argument that attributed such tragedy to...
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...The intent of the paper is to inform the reader of the Bailey bridge and how it impacted the World War II. In doing so, the research provides evidence to support the claim that the bridge design was a very effective use of technological engineering. While the main purpose was to help militant troops transport their machinery, the bridge still serves as a useful tool for many other natural disasters. The Bailey bridge During World War II, heavy machinery was used to transport from one location to another. The bridges could not withstand the drastic weight. Soldiers needed something to transport their machines over rivers and ravines. Thus, the Bailey bridge was created. Named after Sir Donald Bailey, Britain’s Royal Engineers designed the Bailey bridge in 1940....
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