Essay On Millau Viaduct

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Millau Viaduct
The Millau Viaduct is located on Millau and Creissels, France. The bridge stretches across the Tarn River. It is the world's tallest cable-stayed bridge with a height of 343m (which is 40m more than the height of Eiffel Tower). It spans 2.6 km and has a net weight of about 266,000 tons. During summer, the roads stretching along Tarn valley, from Paris to Spain used to become jammed with holiday traffic, which created caused the necessity for construction of a bridge. The objective was to reduce the time required to travel to southern. The Millau Viaduct is the final link in the 338km A75 highway. The road opens up a faster alternative route from north Europe to south France. The bridge was awarded the 2006 International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering Outstanding Structure Award.

Bailong Elevator
The Bailong Elevator, which is literally known as the Hundred Dragons Elevator can carry tourists 1,070ft up along the side of a massive sandstone column. It is a glass elevator that has been built along the side of a cliff in the Wulingyuan area of China. It can take about 48 people at a time to the top in 1.8 minutes. Alternative means to get to the top would be either to take a cable car ride with 99 bends or to hike 999 steps. The area around Bailong Elevator Scenes from the popular movie Avatar was filmed in the area around Bailong elevator. Bailong Elevator has three Guinness world Records to its merit: the world's tallest double-deck sightseeing elevator, the world's fastest passenger traffic elevator with largest carrying capacity and the World's tallest full-exposure outdoor elevator.

The Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam in China that spans the Yangtze River by the...

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...opened on 5 April 1998. It is 12,831 feet long and has three spans. The spectacular view of the bridge when viewed at night resulted in it being also known as the Pearl Bridge. Before the bridge was made, ferries were used to carry passengers across the Akashi Strait. This was dangerous as the waterway often experienced severe storms. In 1955, during a storm two ferries sank in the strait killing 168 people. This led to much pressure on the government to develop plans for a bridge to cross the strait. The initial plan had called for a mixed railway-road bridge, but later the construction was restricted only to road with six lanes. It took ten years for two million workers to construct the bridge. The bridge is situated in a typhoon prone region and hence the bridge has pendulums designed to operate at resonance frequency of the bridge in order to dampen the forces.

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