An Engineered Wonder of the World

This spectacular bridge is 8,981 feet, or 1.7 miles, long. The total weight of the bridge is about 887,000 tons. The two towers stand 726 feet above the water and 500 feet above street level. They weigh

The city made notifications not initially planned out and ultimately adding more dead load of the bridge which led to the collapse under too much load the bridge was intended to take. They also added railings to the bridge that did not meet current safety standards in 1998. By replacing them, it added more load to the bridge. During their last renovation of the bridge before the collapse, more concrete was going to be added. They chose to use mixing truck to pour concrete, but Minnesota specifications said that pouring of concrete was to be done on site and mixing trucks could not be used on state bridges. The company's actions to place trucks all over the site to pour their concrete while specifications said that concrete was to be mixed on site without trucks, shows how the actions taken by the company was not morally right in considering state regulations. Bridge construction inspectors determined that the concrete specifications meet required standards and consequently they determined that it was okay to place the materials on the bridge for the

were very poor, but somehow, many architectural feats were being made. The U.S. Government was still building the greatest dam in the world before the Depression, the Hoover Dam, which lasted five years to build. It takes a lot of manpower and materials for the Government to build this great dam, so they hired contractors to build it and the The U.S. provides the materials. Men of six companies were hired to build the dam in 7 years or penalties will ensue; the men were called, Six Companies, Inc. Remarkably, the contractors banded together to build the dam because of the immense size of the structure, one contractor cannot do the task alone (America's Experiences). The Dams magnificent feat in becoming USA’s greatest dam inspired the same contracting firm to work on a certain bridge in the west (Hiktzik). During the time Hoover Dam was being constructed, out in the west, another architectural feat was occurring. In 1933 San Francisco, California, construction starts on what will soon to be one of America’s greatest landmarks, The Golden Gate Bridge. One of the bridges architects, Joseph B. Strauss, a man who built many bridges across the U.S., was involved in the bridge project. Strauss and his colleagues had to deal with many problems about the bridge such as people saying it had to be impossible or it was expensive and a hazard to the environment (History.com). Once the bridge was funded with thirty-five million dollars,

The report debates the Tacoma narrows bridge failure and the different theories of how it came about, using information about what type of bridge it is and the forces acting on it before and during the collapse. It also discusses ways in which the failure could have been avoided, from changes in the design to modifications to the bridge after its construction.

Suspension bridges were important before 1940 and are still important today. Major cities such as San Francisco, and Manhattan both have a suspension bridge. Suspension bridges are,” a bridge having a deck suspended from cables anchored at their extremities and usually raised on towers” (dictionary.com). Due to the fact that suspension bridges are not completely supported throughout the length of the bridge, past bridges were unsafe. For example, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a suspension bridge opened on July 1st, 1940 (Mark Ketchum). This bridge marked a huge point in suspension bridge safety and engineering, because in collapsed approximately four months after it was opened (Parsons). The collapse caused such a shock, that suspension

The chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, who designed the Golden Gate Bridge, in 1937 quoted, “The Golden Gate Bridge is practically

Pittsburgh is called the City of Bridges because it has 446 of them. The Smithfield Street Bridge is the oldest extant bridges. It was built from 1881 to 1883. It was not the first bridge to built in that spot. The first bridge to built there was Pittsburgh first bridge, a wooden bridge designed by Lewis Wernwag. That bridge was destroyed in the Great Fire. John Roebling’s suspension bridge was built next. The bridge was destroyed a year later due to stability. Then there are the “Three Sisters” bridges. Vernon Covell and his group of engineers plus an architect by the name Stanley Roush designed and built the

The final primary component of a suspension bridge is the deck, or the roadway upon which cars drive and pedestrians walk. The deck is built from massive pieces of steel-reinforced concrete hoisted into the air and laid into place upon the bridge. Deck pieces are connected with bolts and rivets, then suspension cables connect each section of deck to the main

Yarden: While creating our bridge our initial plans were much different than what our final product was. The more we worried about the strength of the bridge, the less time we had. We started off with the idea to have a truss bridge made of wood and cardboard. As shown here, (show picture from journal entry), but as the project progressed our ideas continued to change.

In 1919, a study was begun to see if it would be possible to build a bridge across the Golden Gate. Michael O’Shaughnessy was the San Francisco city engineer. He was in charge of the rebuilding of the city after the devastating 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of the city. O’Shaughnessy knew the need for the city to have bridges. Most said it could not be done and others said it could be done but “it would cost about $100 million to build it” (Barter 23). O’Shaughnessy and Strauss, both wanting the same thing, got together. After the two consulted, they figured the only way to bridge the channel was to use a suspension bridge.

The making of the bridge impacted many people especially the people from San Francisco and Marin County, California. Before, the bridge people would have to cross the waters by boat to get to San Francisco or Marin county. Once the bridge was built people could drive and walk across and its 1.7 miles.

In the past construction also took less time. One reason for this is that safety regulations were not nearly as strict then as they are now. It was understood 80 years ago that any major construction project would come with the loss of life. According to Lisa Vorderbrueggen from Contra Costa Times, for every $1 million to be spent on a project regarding high steel work, there would be one death. In total the bridge cost was $77 million (equivalent to about $1.3 billion in current dollars) and resulted in 24 deaths (Vorderbrueggen).

During the construction, two half-spans being assembled 50 meters above ground level had a misalignment of 4.5 inches or 114mm in camber. It was suggested by John Holland & Constructions to use a kentledge to weigh down the higher section of bridge. It so happened that they had ten, eight tonne concrete blocks on site. These were placed halfway along the higher span to

The basic design of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge itself was a suspension bridge with a center span of 2800 feet and two side spans of one 1100 feet (Farquharson, 1950, p. 17). Its two lane, reinforced concrete roadway was twenty-six feet wide with two 5 foot, 9 inch sidewalks (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Overall the superstructure was 5939 feet, including the suspension structures, approach spans and anchorages (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Anchorages were made of solid concrete and were fifty feet by 170 feet and were fifty feet high (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). The main towers which the cables saddle were 425 feet in height and with a spacing of thirty-nine feet at the top and fifty feet at the bottom (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Each cable consisted of nineteen strands of galvanized wire and totaled a diameter of seventeen inches. The design of the bridge may sound rather large and structurally stable but as mentioned before the bridge was designed to be very sleek looking. By

Because of advancements in today’s technology in construction field, many types of bridges are being constructed depending on the requirement and their suitability for the situations.