Another Common Environmental Factor That Engineers Are

When bridges are poorly constructed, they may fail due to load they carry, collision by derailed trains or even by vehicles that lose control leading to catastrophic incidences. However, if bridges are well-constructed, the chances or injury are greatly minimized in the event of an accident. Discussed in the subsections are the requirements of AS 5100 standards in relation to cable-stayed bridges and include design requirements for bridges, bridge aesthetics, bridge functional requirements, bridge component design requirements and bridge construction

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.

Initially, suspension bridges before 1940 were made of piers, towers, wires, anchorages, and roadways. Piers were the main foundation for the suspension bridges. There usually were two of them, which were made out of cement and were entrenched in ground underneath the body of water that the bridge was spanned across. Towers were built on top of the piers to provide a means of connection for the roadways and wires. Wires were connected to the towers, roadways, and anchorages to provide tension support for the weight of the bridge. The anchorages were large cement platforms that were planted into the ground on either side of the land so that the wires could be connected to it. Lastly, the roadways were the main point of the suspension bridge. They usually were wide enough to provide four lanes of traffic and stretched from one side of the bridge to the other. This was the basic design of the suspension bridges

In Washington, the Interstate 5 bridge, which crossed the Skagit River, collapsed last month. The damage of this accident included two cars broke and three persons injured. According to officials, the bridge fell into the river after the large truck hit a beam. The bridge had a risky condition called facture critical. The U.S has a lot of bridges; however, nearly two thousand bridges were built between the middle of 1950s and the 1970s, so those ones are obsolete bridges. In addition, back then, the government cut corners in bridge buildings to cost reduction. Although gas and diesel taxes attempted to allocate to restored the bridge, the government cloud not collect money enough to repair the bridge because people began to use efficient vehicle.

The bridge affected the community a lot as said above. Also in cost, it took money from the community to build the bridge and lots of people had to help without pay. Which took energy, time and free

Bridges are a vital part of people’s everyday life and without them people would not be able to do nearly as much as is possible today. The weather in the outer banks of North Carolina is very rough and can be very detrimental to the various structures on them. When hurricanes come near North Carolina the outer banks are hit the worst. Bridges on the outer banks keep being destroyed by weather and so the people there have to think about the cost, the effectiveness, and the need between a strong expensive bridge that will be able to handle rough weather or a cheap quick to build bridges that may fall with any extreme weather.

As Professor Farquharson’s studies progressed, modifications on the bridge continued. Tie-down cables were positioned on the bridge’s sides and wires were stretched diagonally across the bridge’s deck and main cables. Thus, the problem was believed to be solved. However, one of the reinforcing tie-down cables, placed only a month prior, snapped due to high speed winds on November 1. The date of this malfunction marks the start of a week-long series of unfortunate events ultimately leading to the bridge’s collapse on November 7.

Bridges are structures that become very susceptible as time passes. In Oregon there have been many bridges being identified to be seismic vulnerable. In an article by Ed Jahn, he sates, “nearly sixty percent of state-identified lifeline bridges likely to collapse or be potentially taken out of use after a quake” (Jahn). Bridges are a whole different story because they aren’t easy to be re-evaluated when they are used constantly by people to get around. The problem with many of these structures, though is that more than half of these bridges were built before 1970 (Jahn). Because of this they aren’t reinforced with new building codes making them highly vulnerable to any disaster to the point of collapsing. It isn’t an easy thing to fix the problems with a bridge because many seem stable but are still at great risk. It is known that “Today, they're still building fracture critical bridges with the belief that they're not going to break,” (Rosenker). Even when a bridge is being identified to see if it’s stable a lot of the time they are thought to be ok, but are really in a bad condition. Because they aren’t fully evaluated, and if a disaster were to hit in a certain location it could cause the bridge to

This is a failure analysis report from the failure of the Oakland Bay Bridge. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge connects Oakland to San Francisco, and is separated into two parts through a tunnel on the Yerba Buena Island, between the two cities. The bridge is famous for its double decker design. On October 27, 2009, the repair of a piece called an eyebar

As it aged into the twenty-first century, Washington State Route 520’s Evergreen Point Floating Bridge began experiencing significant problems that indicated it was approaching the end of its useful lifespan. Government agencies big and small came together to bring forth a replacement bridge project to improve the safety and quality of transportation infrastructure to and from the City of Seattle for many years to come. Over a five-year span, construction was performed to create a floating pontoon bridge, similar in style to the original, but wider and better equipped to withstand the natural conditions of Lake Washington and the Puget Sound region.

The Washington State Bridge and Structures office is responsible for managing Washington state’s bridge inventory. There are roughly 7,300 bridges in the state, of which 74% are concrete structures (WSDOT Web). Bridges have an average expected life cycle of 75 years. The average age of existing bridges in Washington State is 45 years old, therefore are over halfway through their expected life-cycle (WSDOT Web). To ensure safety of the public, periodic inspections and repairs must be performed to maintain and improve the serviceability of the bridges.

Improperly designed welds on the cross bracing led to the failure of 3 of the bridge’s beams. Extremely cold weather and constant morning rush-hour traffic also added to the list of causes. This caused the bridge to buckle inwards.

Just as with any system that has to be maintained, inspection is a big part. Before you can fix anything that broken in a system, you have to find the failure first. Same goes for bridges. In order for bridges to maintained and kept safe, routine bridge inspections have to be performed, and any problems that make the bridge unsafe have to be fixed.

It is shaped in a way to transfer weight to the towers and anchors with its tension (O'Connor, 1971, p. 372). Cables are made of high strength wires spirally bound to form a rope (O'Connor, 1971, p. 372). Vertical cable suspenders that are fastened to the main cables hang the actual roadway. Stiffening girders and trusses are along the side of the bridge to distribute concentrated loads and help to keep the motion of the bridge at a minimum (Troitsky, 1994, p115).

High rate of population grow and improvement in the technology forced individuals to move to rural area. As a result, they use more and more personal vehicles for traveling and commuting to urban areas and big cities each day. On the other side, most bridges in Canada and United States by now are more than 50 years old. Therefore, soon or later, rehabilitation or replacement on bridges are unavoidable (John R. Fowler). However, how to manage the bridge rehabilitation or replacement by having minimum effect on traffic is one of the biggest concern for engineers all around the world.