Cable-Stayed Bridge

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Holland's Erasmus Bridge resembles a harp with its cable-stayed construction. At first glance, the cable-stayed bridgemay look like just a variant of the suspension bridge, but don't let their similar towers and hanging roadways fool you. Cable-stayed bridges differ from their suspension predecessors in that they don't require anchorages, nor do they need two towers. Instead, the cables run from the roadway up to a single tower that alone bears the weight. The tower of a cable-stayed bridge is responsible for absorbing and dealing with compressional forces. The cables attach to the roadway in various ways. For example, in a radial pattern, cables extend from several points on the road to a single point at the tower, like numerous fishing lines attached to a single pole. In a parallel pattern, the cables attach to both the roadway and the tower at several separate points.

Engineers constructed the first cable-stayed bridges in Europe following the close of World War II, but the basic design dates back to the 16th century and Croatian inventor Faust Vrancic. A contemporary of astronomers Tycho Brache and Johannes Kepler, Vrancic produced the first known sketch of a cable-stayed bridge in his book "Machinae Novae." Today, cable-stayed bridges are a popular choice as they offer all the advantages of a suspension bridge but at a lesser cost for spans of 500 to 2,800 feet (152 to 853 meters). They require less steel cable, are faster to build and incorporate more precast concrete sections. Not all bridges requires great hunks of steel and concrete though. Sometimes a tree root or two will do the trick.

We are a species of bridge builders. Since time out of mind, humans have engineered structures to surmount obstacles, such as, say, Jiaozhou Bay. The body of water is now home to a 26.4-mile (42.5-kilometer) bridge that links the busy Chinese port city of Quingdao to the Chinese suburb of Huangdou. We've tamed steel, stone, lumber and even living vegetation, all in an effort to reach the places, people and things we desire. Although the concept itself is as simple as felling a tree across a creek, bridge design and construction entails serious ingenuity. Artists, architects and engineers pour vast resources into bridge construction and, in doing so, reshape the very environment in which we live.

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As a result, we inhabit a planet of bridges, some as ancient as Greece's 3,000-year-old Arkadiko bridge or as unchanged as India's 500-year-old Meghalaya living bridges, which are coaxed into existence from growing tree roots (more on that later). Countless others have fallen into the ravines and rivers they span, as humans continue to tackle ever more ambitious bridges and construction. In this article, we'll get to know the bridges we so often take for granted (we literally walk and drive all over them), as well as the designs that make them possible. We'll look at the fundamental principles of bridge engineering, the different types and how we attempt to thwart the physical forces and natural phenomena that perpetually threaten to destroy the world's bridges. First up, let's get right down to the basics.

BATS: The Basics of Bridge Design

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Manitoba, Canada's Esplanade Riel pedestrian bridge, competed in 2003, spans the Red River. If you're going to build a bridge, you'll need some help from BATS -- not the furry, winged mammals that so often live beneath bridges, but the key structural components of bridge construction: beams, arches, trussesand suspensions. Various combinations of these four technologies allow for numerousbridge designs, ranging from simplebeam bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges and suspension bridges to more complex variations, such as the pictured side-spar cable-stayed bridge. For all its 21st century complexity, the side-spar design is based on suspension principles first used some two centuries earlier. The key differences between these four bridge types comes down to the lengths they can cross in a single span, which is the distance between two bridge supports, the physical braces that connect the bridge to the surface below. Bridge supports may take the form of columns, towers or even the walls of a canyon. Modern beam bridges, for instance, are likely to span up to 200 feet (60 meters), while modern arch bridges can safely cross 800-1,000 feet (240-300 meters). Suspension bridges are capable of extending from 2,000-7,000 feet (610-2,134 meters). Regardless of the structure, every bridge must stand strong under the two important forces we'll talk about next.

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Bridge Science Fair Project Topics

By Eric Benac, eHow Contributor updated May 04, 2011

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Bridge science projects can get behind the science of this important transportation tools.

Bridges have been used for centuries to cross large gaps, including gaps over rivers, mountains and crevices. There are many different bridge science projects options to make, design and display. Each bridge science project should be used to showcase a different idea, such as structural integrity, design or the future of bridge design.

1. Bridge Weight Capacity

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Look up several different bridge designs online and use them as a guide to designing some bridges to build. Pick appropriate material that you feel comfortable using, such as craft sticks and glue. Design and draw several different bridges. Alter the designs in small ways. Purchase a set of one ounce weights. Build the bridges and present them, discussing the different designs and which one you think will support more weight. Place the bridges between two tables and attach a string and small platform to the bottom of each bridge. Make sure each platform weighs the same. Begin adding one ounce weights to the bridges. Keep adding weights until each bridge collapses. Note which bridge supported more weight.

Book Bridge
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Use this project in elementary classes to teach children about the basics of bridge building. Each child is given access to about 10 different books of various sizes. Make sure each child gets the same books to make this project fair. Give them a day to design a bridge out of the books that stretches between two different chairs. Watch the bridges for 10 minutes to make sure they are sturdy enough to stand up for extended periods. Take pictures of all of the bridges and tape these to

a piece of construction paper. Label each picture, including the student name and the books used. Place the books and chairs near your project. Other people can then build a bridge in the same way.

Computer Designed Bridges

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This project is good for high school-level drafting and CAD classes. Each student should design a bridge using their drafting and CAD tools. They should start by drawing the bridge down on paper and then transferring it to computer. Use any physics simulations in the CAD program to test each bridge's integrity. The students can strengthen their bridge to make sure it is strong enough to stay standing. Print out each bridge design and tape them to a piece of construction paper. Advanced students may wish to make a 3D model of their bridge for video display. Each student can write a brief paper on using CAD to design bridges.

Famous Bridge Model

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Recreating famous bridges is a project that works well with art oriented students. Each student should pick a famous bridge they want to recreate. They should each pick a different bridge to avoid duplication. Print out pictures of each bridge and give your students access to a wide variety of modeling tools. These tools should include wood, modeling stone, glue, knives and anything else they need. Give the students about a month to finish the bridges. Present these at the science fair and discuss the science behind modeling, including scaling down each part of the model and recreating scenery.

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References
Science Buddies: The Effect of Bridge Design on Weight Bearing Capacity Education.com: A Bridge to Nowhere Bridge Contest: Computer Designed Bridges University of Portsmouth: Bridges of the World

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Modern Bridge Designs

There are six basic modern bridge forms: the beam, the truss, the arch, the cantilever, the cable-stay, and the suspension. A beam bridge is made of long timber, metal, or concrete beams anchored at each end. If the beams are arranged in a lattice, such as a triangle, so that each shares only a portion of the weight on any part of the structure, the result is a truss bridge. An arch bridge has a bowed shape causing the vertical force of the weight it carries to produce a horizontal outward force at its ends. It may be constructed of steel, concrete, or masonry. A cantilever bridge is formed by self-supporting arms anchored at and projecting toward one another from the ends; they meet in the middle of the span where they are connected together or support a third member. In a cable-stayed bridge, the roadway is supported by cables attached directly to the supporting tower or towers. This differs from a suspension bridge, where the roadway is suspended from vertical cables that are in turn attached to two or more main cables. These main cables hang from two towers and have their ends anchored in bedrock or concrete. The modern era of bridge building began with the development of the Bessemer process for converting cast iron into steel. It became possible to design framed structures with greater ease and flexibility. Single-piece, rolled steel beams can support spans of 50 to 100 ft (15 30 m), depending on the load. Larger, built-up beams are made for longer spans; a steel box-beam bridge with an 850-ft (260-m) span crosses the Rhine at Cologne.

Truss, Arch, and Cantilever Bridges

The truss can span even greater distances and carry heavy loads; it is therefore commonly used for railroad bridges. A large truss span like that over the Columbia River at Astoria, Oreg., can extend to 1,232 ft (376 m). If the truss is shaped into an arch, even longer bridges are possible; the Bayonne Bridge between New York and New Jersey, the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia, and the New River Bridge in West Virginia are the longest steel arch bridges, at 1,675 ft (510 m), 1,670 ft (509 m), and 1,700 ft (518 m), respectively. Concrete arch bridges tend to be somewhat smaller, the largest being the Krk Bridge in Croatia and the Gladesville Bridge across the Parramatta River at Sidney, Australia, at 1,280 ft (390 m) and 1,000 ft (305 m), respectively; the longest concrete arch bridge in the United States is the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge in Franklin, Tenn., at 582 ft (177 m). The cantilever, however, is more common for spans of such lengths. The cantilevered Forth Bridge (1890) in Scotland was the first major structure built entirely of steel, the material that made possible its two record-setting spans of 1,710 ft (521 m) each. They remained the longest in existence until 1917, when the St. Lawrence River at Quebec Bridge was built; it has an 1,800-ft (549-m) span. The longest cantilever bridge in the United States is the Commodore John Barry Bridge in Chester, Penn., which has an 1,644 ft (501 m) span.

Cable-Stayed, Suspension, and Combination Bridges

The cable-stayed bridge is the most modern type, coming into prominence during the 1950s. The longest is the Tatara Bridge in Ehime, Japan, which has a 2,920 ft (890 m) span. The Ponte de Normandie in Le Havre, France, spans 2,808 ft (856 m); the Second

Yangtze Bridge in Nanjing, China, spans 2,060 ft (628 m); and the Third Yangtze Bridge in Wuhan, China, spans 2,028 ft (618 m). The longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States is the Dame Point Bridge in Jacksonville, Fla., which has a span of 1,300 ft (396 m). The suspension bridge is used for the longest spans. The earliest suspension bridges built in America were those constructed by the American builder James Finley. The design of suspension bridges advanced when J. A. Roebling, a German-born engineer who emigrated to the United States, developed the use of wire cables and stiffening trusses. His first completed suspension bridge spanned the Niagara River in 1854. He also designed the Brooklyn Bridge across the East River (completed 1883), which was the world's longest suspension bridge at the time of its construction, having a main span of 1,595.5 ft (487 m). Today the longest spans in the world are suspended. The longest main spans are the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, Hyogo, Japan, 6,529 ft (1,990 m); Izmit Bay Bridge, Marmara Sea, Turkey, 5,472 ft (1,668 m); Store Blt Bridge, Denmark, 5,328 ft (1,624 m); Humber River Bridge, Hull, England, 4,626 ft (1410 m); Tsing Ma Bridge, Hong Kong, 4,518 ft (1,377 m); Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, New York City, 4,260 ft (1,298 m); Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 4,200 ft (1,280 m); Hoga Kusten (or High Coast) Bridge, Vsternrrland, Sweden, 3,969 ft (1,210 m); Mackinac Straits Bridge, Mich., 3,800 ft (1,158 m); Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge, Japan, 3,668 ft (1,118 m); Second Bosporus Bridge, stanbul, Turkey, 3,576 ft (1,090 m); First Bosporus Bridge, stanbul, Turkey, 3,524 ft (1,074 m); and George Washington Bridge, New York City, 3,500 ft (1,067 m). Combination spans are often used to bridge even longer stretches of water. The San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge, noted for its three long spans, of which two are suspension spans and the third a cantilever, has a total length of 8.25 mi (13.2 km). TheChesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel has two 1-mi (1.6-km) tunnels along its 17.6-mi (28.2-km) length, and the 8-mi (12.9-km)Confederation Bridge, linking Prince Edward Island to the Canadian mainland, consists of three bridges. The longest combination spans are the twin Lake Ponchartrain Causeways near New Orleans, Louisiana, whose parallel roadways stretch nearly 24 mi (38 km). The longest cross-sea bridge is the Hangzhou Bay Bridge, 22.4 mi (36 km) long, which crosses the bay between Zhapu and Cixi, Zhejiang prov., China; the bridge combines causeway with two cable-stayed spans.

Movable Bridges
Movable bridges are generally constructed over waterways where it is impossible or prohibitive to build a fixed bridge high enough for water traffic to pass under it. The most common types of movable bridge are the lifting, bascule, and swing bridges. The lifting bridge, or lift bridge, consists of a rigid frame carrying the road and resting abutments, over each of which rises a steel-frame tower. The center span, which in existing bridges is as long as 585 ft (178 m), is hoisted vertically. The bascule bridge follows the principle of the ancient drawbridge. It may be in one span or in two halves meeting at the center. It consists of a rigid structure mounted at the abutment on a horizontal shaft, about which it swings in a vertical arc. The lower center span of the famous Tower Bridge in London is of the double-leaf bascule type. Because of the need for large counterweights and the stress on hoisting machinery, bascule bridge spans are limited to about 250 ft (75 m). The swing

bridge is usually mounted on a pier in midstream and swung parallel to the stream to allow water passage.

Military Bridges
In wartime, where the means of crossing a stream or river is lacking or a bridge has been destroyed by the enemy, the military bridge plays a vital role. Standard types of military bridges include the trestle, built on the spot by the engineering corps from any available material, and the floating bridge made with portable pontoons.