This essay will review major bridge collapses, and how they were resolved to improve the design of future bridges. The two main causes of bridge failure, wind loads and improper design or design flaws, will be discussed with examples like the Tacoma bridge collapse of 1940 and the I-35 Mississippi River bridge collapse of 2007 later on in the paper (4, 1). Although these are the two usual causes of bridge collapse there are also many other reasons for bridge failure such as, corrosion by environment, natural disasters, erosion, oversight of design criteria, loading beyond design, collision, and many different contributing factors. The goal of this essay is not only to discover why bridges collapse and give information on the subject, but to also see how a slight miscalculation or the oversight of some detail can lead to a momentous disaster. Although, a few cases of disaster, as will be seen, just cannot be helped.
Since the mid 1400’s, man has taken record of over 360 bridge collapses due to some form of disaster. Whether its design flaw, natural disaster, or even a manmade disaster, bridges have continued to collapse due to many different forms of collision. As highlighted in the opening paragraph, within the two main reasons for bridge collapse, there is one reason cannot be explained.
The somewhat recent bridge collapse in Seattle is an ideal example. The Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge 1990 in Seattle crosses Lake Washington was designed as a floating bridge suspended on pontoons. A bizarre series of construction errors filled the pontoons with water used in resurfacing the bridge along with rain and lake water from a storm. As time progressed the bridge slowly sank to the bottom of the lake. At first thought many woul...
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...ughout the years have continued to learn and adapt to new situations while building bridges. Basic bridge designs have been used throughout the years such as the arch bridge or the beam bridge, and are modified to fit the needs of today’s world. Engineers have modified and advanced bridges by adding simple things to help support and elongate bridge life spans. Beam supports and reinforced concrete are a few simple yet important things engineers have done to ensure the safety and efficiency of bridges.
Many thoughts go into the construction of bridges that range from the location of the bridge to the exact beam placement. With engineers continuing to discover new ground breaking tools and technology; bridges become more and more safe. Though bridges have fallen in the past, engineers not only hope to lessen bridge failure but one day eliminate it once and for all.
Steven Hermosillo Professor Wallace Fire Tech 105 15 November 2015 Silver Bridge Collapse According to Wikipedia, Forty-six people were killed in the silver-bridge collapse and another nine people were injured. “The Silver Bridge was an eye-bar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge connected Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, over the Ohio River” (Wikipedia). This was a highly used bridge serving thousands of cars a day before the collapse.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is split into three sections. In the first section, Bierce describes in detail the situation, a youn...
Bridge efficiency is important as it helps reduce cost of building while maximizing the strength of the bridge. Many things can influence the bridge’s strength and weight, but the two main things that can cause a bridge to be a failure or success is the design of the bridge and construction of its joints. In order to build a potent balsa truss bridge, it is crucial to know how the layout of members and style of gluing can help increase or decrease strength.
The reasons for the collapse are to be found in the acts and omissions of those entrusted with building a bridge of a new and highly sophisticated design.
The Golden Gate bridge, standing as an icon of roadway innovations, took multiple engineers years to design and complete. They could not just simply build an ordinary bridge. They had to take into consideration the physics behind it, as well as, what kind of effect the environment would have upon the bridge. The bridge sits along one of the most active fault lines in the world, so engineers had to make sure their bridge could withstand a little movement. Today the Golden Gate bridge still stands tried and true, as does many other innovations that 20th century engineers came up with.
People who thinks of Thornton Wilder primarily in terms of his classic novella “Our Town,” The Bridge of San Luis Rey will seem like quite a switch. For one thing, he has switched countries; instead of middle America, he deals here with Peru. He has switched eras, moving from the twentieth century back to the eighteenth. He has also dealt with a much broader society than he did in “Our Town,” representing the lower classes and the aristocracy with equal ease. But despite these differences, his theme is much the same; life is short, our expectations can be snuffed out with the snap of a finger, and in the end all that remains of us is those we have loved.
The commission issued 15 conclusions that lead to the failure of the bridge. The commission found that Theodore Cooper and Peter Szlapka were directly responsible for the collapse. Peter Szlapka was the design engineer for the Phoenix Bridge Company and designed the chords that failed. Theodore Cooper was found responsible as well because he officially examined and approved the design. The Quebec Bridge and Railroad Company was also found responsible for failure to appoint an experienced engineer as chief engineer. The main reason for the collapse was poor design. Eventually the bridge became so heavy that it couldn’t even support itself. The bending and distortion of the steel was caused by the dead load of the bridge. The collapse can also be due to stubbornness and refusal to admit a mistake was made early on and didn’t want to redo all the plans. The Phoenix Bridge Company refused to believe their steel was bending and claimed that the distortions must have already been there before the steel was used to make the bridge. Also important factors such as increasing the span of the bridge were not taken into account and no new calculations were ever computed to change the
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is perhaps the most notorious failure in the world of engineering. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 just months after its opening on July 1, 1940. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff and at its time it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of over half a mile long. The bridge was very narrow and sleek giving it a look of grace, but this design made it very flexible in the wind. Nicknamed the "Galloping Gertie," because of its undulating behavior, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge drew the attention of motorists seeking a cheap thrill. Drivers felt that they were driving on a roller coaster, as they would disappear from sight in the trough of the wave. On the last day of the bridge's existence it gave fair warning that its destruction was eminent. Not only did it oscillate up and down, but twisted side to side in a cork screw motion. After hours of this violent motion with wind speeds reaching forty and fifty miles per hour, the bridge collapsed. With such a catastrophic failure, many people ask why such an apparently well thought out plan could have failed so badly?(This rhetorical question clearly sets up a position of inquiry-which iniates all research.) The reason for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still controversial, but three theories reveal the basis of an engineering explanation. (Jason then directly asserts what he found to be a possible answer to his question.)
In her essay,”Importance of the Golden Gate Bridge,” Stephanie Stiavetti suggest that “It maintained this point of pride for nearly 25 years until the Verrazano- Narrows Bridge was built in New York in 1964. Today, this historic San Francisco landmark holds its place as the second largest suspension bridge in the country, behind Verrazano Narrows.” Back then, experts thought that it would be impossible to build a bridge across the tides and currents in that area because strong currents and tides would make construction extremely difficult and dangerous. The water is over 500 feet deep in the center of the channel, and along with the area's strong winds and thick fog, the idea of building a bridge there seemed nearly impossible. Despite all of the problems of building a bridge across the Golden Gate, Joseph Strauss was named as lead engineer for the project. Construction began January 5, 1933, and in the end cost more than $35 million to
In the winter of 1852, John Roebling and his 15 year-old son, Washington were riding a ferry boat across the East River from New York to Brooklyn. John Roebling was an engineer. His specialty was building bridges. As he looked across the East River, he could picture the bridge he wanted there. For years after that, John tried to convince people that his plan for a bridge across the East River was a good one. But most people thought it was nearly impossible to bridge the wide and powerful river. John knew it would be difficult. There were many problems to be solved. The bridge would have to be strong enough to withstand the swift currents and powerful winds of the East River. It could not get in the way of the hundreds of boats that traveled on the river every day. It had to be so high that the masts of tall sailing ships could easily pass under it. And it had to be long. The East River was nearly half a mile wide at that point. But John also knew about a type of bridge that could solve all the problems. It was called a suspension bridge.
The results show that the bridge in Case 1 collapsed under 44% of the total applied load with 0.097 inches bending displacement and 0.45 inches buckling displacement, as shown in Figs 10 -11. The bridge collapsed due to the huge lateral movement at the top of the webs, which caused a loss of stability and ability of the webs to carry any load, Figs 12-13. The value of the bending displacement is small compared to the value of the buckling displacement because almost no bending moment was created under this situation, since the webs would not be able to carry the load and transfer it vertically to the bearing support.
The reason I picked the design I did was because it seemed like a solid and traditional style of bridge. The bridge mirrored a Warren Truss bridge which is general, but efficient at distributing the weight across the bridge. I am relatively inexperienced at building, so the Warren Truss seemed like the best idea since it is both simple and effective.
The collapse of the Tay bridge has interested engineers, scientists and members of the public for decades. There have been many enquiries into the collapse and theories proposed as to why it happened. For hours after the disaster, people were left confused and perplexed about the facts concerning what they had observed. It was unclear whether the train, and the passengers, had survived the storm and furthermore there was the shock of how such a robust and recently built bridge had actually collapsed.. Earlier in the day, at 1.15pm, the Dundee, a ferry boat, was taken across the waters. The captain noted that the weather was mild and that the waters were calm.
During the past two centuries a various number of bridges and buildings had been structurally failed and collapsed all over the world. Some of these cases caused a sizeable number of human losses. For example, collapse of Tay Bridge in 1879 killed at least sixty persons. Beside the problems related to their construction and design, probably the miscarriage to follow engineering ethics correctly was partly responsible for these incidents. Growing engineering professionalism during the nineteenth century gave rise to the development of a number of famous engineering societies, such as American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME) (1871), American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE ( (1884), etc. Instead, responding to series of significant structural failures mentioned above, some engineering societies developed formal codes of ethics.
For this bridge its fall was inflicted by an unknown patron. One who’s identity or existence we never see verified. The record of the fall is short in the story described as only being for a moment. Then the bridge was finally introduced to “the sharp rocks which had always gazed up at me so peacefully from the rushing water”. Rocks gazing peacefully? This is almost as absurd as a bridge turning around. An action that the bridge itself cannot seem to believe it is doing. This attempt by the bridge was his final effort before his fall. I cannot even picture how a bridge would turn around and attempt to look on his back. The question that comes to my mind is how can a bridge see what’s on his back? If this book is trying to make us believe that this bridge is a human, or has human like qualities. Then how flexible a person is this bridge? Because I know very few people who can see whats on their back. Especially without turning so much that anything on their back would fall off. So is this bridge so inflexible that it breaks itself by turning around or is it trying to buck off its attacker unintentionally? This answer is never answered due to the story ending shortly thereafter this scene. With the short fall of the bridge onto the sharp rocks it had stared at for the entirety of its life. The events before and during the fall of the bridge was the main issue I had with my thesis that the bridge was