Balsa Salsa Bridge Project

Caleb James Adam Webb

Project Manager Engineer Manager
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Andrew Vouvalis
Engineer
Email: [email protected]

A bridge was needed to be designed and built from balsa 1 Introduction

wood. The requirements for the bridge were that it had to While truss bridges may have been around for a long
withstand a net weight of at least one hundred pounds, and time, it was not until recently that engineers were able to fig-
that it had to be cost effective and obtain a high-performance ure out what was mathematically happening in these struc-
index (PI). The design process involved drawing two dimen- tures. “There is no evidence of truss bridges in the an-
sional sketches of bridges that were to be analyzed for the cient world, but the 13th-century sketchbook of the French
forces and stresses (i.e. normal, bearing and shear) in each architect Villard de Honnecourt depicts a species of truss
member. The design chosen was the one that utilized the bridge. . . ” (Petruzzello & Lotha 2019). Truss bridges had
compression and tensile strength of the balsa wood most ef- been used since the 1300s; however, it was not until the
fectively. Results of the first test needed to be improved upon. early 1800s that the truss bridge became popular. “In 1820,
Even though the bridge held over the one hundred pounds, it the first truss bridge design was patented, and the concept
was expensive and had a lower than average PI. Revisions quickly took off, with engineers beginning to experiment
were made to the original bridge, making it simpler, cheaper with different truss styles” (Harris n.d.). During the boom
and in the second test it received a higher PI. For the third of truss bridge design, people began to realize there were
bridge test, it was decided that there would be no glue in- many advantages to this kind of design. It was found that
volved to see if the bridge would hold up better if the wood this bridge design was strong at spanning large gaps, because
was cut to fit. Results of the project showed the importance of of how it distributed forces throughout the structure help-
the geometry that was chosen so the forces could be spread ing strong material become even stronger. Also, there were
efficiently throughout the material. disadvantages found throughout this design. These bridges
could get quite heavy and expensive quickly. Luckily at
this time, iron and steel became more available allowing for
Nomenclature even bigger and stronger bridges versus the wooden versions.
A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L Are all of the joints. Distance “Wood was the primary material available in these early
apart (m). years, but iron and then steel came along and changed every-
thing.” (Boon 2005, modified 2017). During the early years
FAB , FAC , FBC , FBD , FBE , FCE , FDE , FDF , FDG , FEG , FFG ,
it was all about the craftsmanship of the bridge since no one
FFH , FGH , FGI , FHI , FHJ , FIJ , FIK , FJK , FJL , FKL Forces(N)
knew exactly how the forces were acting on the truss mem-
Ax , Ay , Ly Reactionary forces (N) bers. “The first engineer to analyze correctly the stresses
W Applied Force (N) in a truss was Squire Whipple, an American who designed
MA The moment about joint A (N-m). hundreds of small truss bridges and published his theories in
σn Normal Stress (Pa) 1869.” ( Petruzzello & Lotha 2019). After this finding, many
σb Bearing Stress (Pa) other engineers were able to design their bridges more effec-
τs Shearing Stress (Pa) tively, lowering the cost of the bridges and making them even
θ Angle (degrees) stronger.

P
σmax = A Equation 1
2 Methodology
τmax = σmax
2 Equation 2  begin to find the forces and stresses in each member,
To
you have to first find the reactionary forces. To do this, you
P
σb = t∗d Equation 3 must create a free body diagram like Fig 1 and then sum the

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 you must take the internal force(P) of the member and divide
it by a cross sectional area(A) as shown in Equation 1. If
the member is under compression, you need to use a cross
sectional area that is between the two pins. If the member
is under tension, you will take the cross sectional area at the
pin where the material of the member is the smallest. To
find the maximum shearing stress on a member, you take the
maximum normal stress for the member and divide it by two
as shown in Equation 2. Finally, to find the maximum bear-
ing stress you need to take the internal force(P) and divide
it by the diameter(d) of the pin times the thickness(t) of the
material as shown in Equation 3. As shown in Fig 3, we cal-
Fig. 1. Global Free Body Diagram
culated how the forces and stress would change by changing
weight using a spreadsheet. We then used the strengths in
Fig 4 and compared them to the stresses that we calculated
forces in the y and x direction and the moments about joint in the spreadsheet to try and find the maximum weight that
A or L. After that, the rest of the forces can be found using the bridge could hold. From this, we found that the bridge
the method of joints or sections. should hold a force of around 790 Newtons if it is constructed
In this project, we used the method of joints to find correctly.
the forces in each of the members connected to the specific
joint that you are focusing on. We started with joint A and
worked from left to right across the truss until each force
was found. When using the method of joints, there are two
equations that are used, the summation of the forces in the x
direction and the summation of the forces in the y direction.
This means that the joint that you choose can not have more
than two unknown forces acting on it. With joint A, there
are only two unknown forces when we start the method of
joints and those are forces acting on member AB and mem-
ber AC. We first found the force in member AB by summing
the forces in the y direction. After that, we could sum the
forces in the x direction to find the force in member AC. Af-
ter this we used this same method to find the forces acting on
each joint. The order we completed the method of joints is
A,C,B,E,D,F,G,H,I,K and then J. Fig. 3. Calculations of Forces and Stresses in the members

Fig. 4. Balsa Wood Properties

Fig. 2. Free Body Diagram of Joint A

3 Results and Discussions

After we found the forces in each member, we then In total there were three different bridge builds, as of
went and found the maximum normal, shear and bearing now only two have been tested. The first bridge had a very
stress in each member. To find the maximum normal stress, unconventional design and was later dubbed ”Frankenstein’s

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Bridge”(Fig 6). When tested it held a mass of 171 lbs and
a Force/Weight ratio of 231. Further analysis showed that
the bridge was statically indeterminate, this lead to redesign
which both the second and third bridges share. When the
second bridge was tested it achieved a record weight (at the
time) of 282lbs and a Force/Weight ratio of 551.2. The final
test resulted in a weight of 254.4lbs and a PI of 30.00.

Fig. 5. Cost Analysis

Fig. 6. Frankenstein’s Bridge

4 Conclusion
In the end the Pratt truss was picked for the final design.
The Pratt truss was the second tested bridge and endured the
one-hundred pound force with no obvious signs of breaking.
The bridge was substantially cheaper than the original design
by 23.5% and about one third of the weight.

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Fig. 7. Final Bridge

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