Bridge Erosion

In the small town of Waco, Texas who would have thought it was once well known for the structure of a bridge, the Waco Suspension Bridge to be exact. Up until 1870, the Brazos River was just a simple river that had no special meaning to it. The land around it was empty, occasionally you would find cattlemen pushing their cattle across stream, but that was only because you could not find one bridge that spanned the eight hundred miles of river flowing through Central Texas. This caused a serious transportation issue for merchants and travelers. It became clear that a better means of crossing the river was necessary.

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.

Sometimes the wind would not be perpendicular, in which the oscillation of the bridge was less, but there was still some oscillation. On November 7th, 1940, the Tacoma Bridge collapsed because the oscillation of the bridge became extreme. The oscillation of the bridge was caused by a wind speed of 42 mph (HistoryLink.org). After, approximately, an hour of a corkscrew like motion, the bridge collapsed into Puget Sound. This marked a huge turning point in the design of suspension bridges from that point in time to current time.

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 first memory I have of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge (the 59th Street Bridge) is from when I was ten-years old. It was early October, barely 8:30 in the morning, and my mom was driving through traffic at 70 mph with the skill of a middle-aged taxi driver. Going about 20 mph over the speed limit, she had been screaming into her phone telling the person at the other end, Fred, that we would be late. That morning I had been extremely late for a test at the Trinity School which would determine my acceptance into a private school. Speeding across the bridge was hectic and slightly terrifying (I had a childhood fear of large bodies of water and the East River was no exception).But somehow, through the window of the car, I had the time to think to myself; You can see everything from up here.

The I-35W Mississippi river bridge also known as Bridge 9340 officially was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge which carried the Interstate 35W across the Mississippi river connected the downtown east and Marcy-Holmes. Its construction began in the year 1964, was finally opened in 1967. It connected the northeast of Metrodome on its south end and the University of Minnesota on the North end. The bridge was the boundary of “Mississippi Mile” downtown riverfront parkland. The north foundation of the bridge was near the hydroelectric plant built in 1988. The south abutment was in an area polluted by the coal gas processing plant. There weren’t any mentions of this in the failure investigations. The bridge was a continuous truss bridge that had a total span of 1,907 ft. It was an 8-lane bridge having a width of 113.3ft. and was 115 ft. high. It was designed by Sverdrup & Parcel to 1961 AASHO (American Association Of State Highway Officials) standard specifications. The construction contract worth more than US $5.2 million at the time, went to Hurcon Inc. and Industrial Construction Company, which built the steel trusses and deck. The piers were not built in the navigation channel instead the center span of the bridge consisted of a single 456- foot steel truss over a 390-foot channel being the longest span of the bridge.

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 most distinguished covered bridge is the Cedar covered bridge. It was primarily formed over Cedar Creek, North of Winterset, Iowa. It was built in 1883by Benton Jones. In 1912 it was repositioned to the present location, however, still stands over the original creek. Arson struck in 2002, and after the bridge was reconstructed in 2004. The Cedar bridge was the only covered bridge that vehicles could yet pass over. Because of the reputation the bridge possessed, cameras were installed to prevent supplementary vandalism. In 2017, arson struck again and sent the notorious bridge down in flames.

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.

On November 7, 1940, the unthinkable happened to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It collapsed at Puget Sound in Washington (state), only four months after its completion and after more than fifty years of insusceptibility from suspension bridge failure. The bridge was by far the most flexible among its contemporaries. Under moderate winds, the deck of the bridge not only swayed from side to side but it would also be subject to severe twisting. The vibrations were so violent that the deck of the bridge was torn away and crashed into the water below. Thus, this could have been prevented

One the night of December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, collapsed while full of rush hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people, two of which were never found, and many others sustained injuries.

On the 15th October, 1970, during its third year of construction, the Westgate Bridge collapsed killing 35 men. The section of the bridge that collapsed was a 128 meter span that was being worked on at

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

On the 15th of December, the bridge collapsed during a busy rush hour and a total of 46 people were killed, 2 of which were never found. After much analysis of the wreckage it was found the collapse had been due to a few factors. Whilst the busy traffic had meant that the bridge was carrying loads far greater than had been originally foreseen during the design, the bridge had also been very poorly maintained in the time leading up to the collapse. The main cause of the disaster was due to the failure of an eyebar. A small defect in the bar was found that was a mere 2.5mm, but due to the specific eye bar construction used, this defect lead to the total failure of the Bridge.

A substantial number of extensions falls as they`re been constructed, which may appear outlandish. Tragically history has that the most dangerous development mischances is amid development of a bridge. A case is the 1907 of the Quebec Bridge[John Deans, 1907] that crosses St. Lawrence River shows and proof of designing error. (Ed Grabianowski, 2011)