Clifton Suspension Bridge
The Clifton Suspension Bridge is located in Bristol England, and spans the beautiful Avon gorge. This bridge has become the symbol of Bristol much like the Eiffel tower has of Paris, and the Opera house has of Sydney. The story of the Clifton Suspension Bridge began in 1754 with the dream of a Bristol wine merchant who donated his life savings to build a bridge over the gorge. To decide on a suitable design for the bridge a competition was held. Thomas Telford, the leading civil architect of the time was the judge. Mr. Telford attempted to submit his own design; however the decision to declare himself the winner was overruled and a second competition was held. This time, contrary to the recommendation of
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Also the original design was narrower than the final structure; the increased width has an interesting story. Apparently a local land owner wished to drive his carriage to Bristol without having to walk or negotiate the steep roads on the sides of the gorge, so he convinced the engineers, and paid for the necessary modifications to widen the design of the bridge. It is fortunate that he insisted on this widening because the bridge as it was originally designed would have never been able to cater to modern traffic demands. The bridge was finished in 1859 and opened to the public in 1864.
Before the bridge was built the slip way was the only way to cross the river without taking a long detour. The slip way was crossed at high tide by rowing a boat across, and at low tide by crossing on series gangplanks that were tied together. Both crossings were fairly dangerous and extremely inconvenient and therefore a bridge was a very popular idea.
The Clifton Suspension bridge is world famous and one of the essential things to see in the West Country. It is a beautiful piece of engineering that is lovely maintained by the bridge staff. The two towers of the bridge span from Clifton to summerset, the Clifton tower is build on a solid rock surface that acts as a foundation, however the summerset tower needed a massive brick buttress before work on the tower could begin. The towers though similar are not identical. The towers are similar in size, the main differences
The Goodwill bridge’ aesthetically pleasing figure was designed by skilled architects from Cox Rayner and then passed on to the engineers at Ove Arup and Partners, to continue on with the further design preparation before the structure was to be constructed. A large well known construction company was in charge of the bridge construction, with the main contractor being John Holland.. In charge of the project was project manager Jack Sullivan, from Amtec International Construction Services.
After crossing the river we follow the Teesdale Way to the remains of the Tees Viaduct. This was built in 1861 to carry the railway to Kirby Stephen and Middleton-in-Teesdale. The viaduct had six tall piers, four of which stood in the river. The line closed in 1965 and the viaduct was demolished in 1972. Plans were put forward, in 2002, to erect a rope suspension bridge between the two remaining piers. If this ever came to fruition, it would be the world’s longest rope suspension bridge at a distance of 600 feet (183m).
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.
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
For our physics practical, we visited The Millennium Bridge a pedestrian footbridge located at the heart of London that crosses the River Thames. It links the City and St Paul’s Cathedral to the north with the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern on Bankside. Construction of this infrastructure began in the late 1998 by the engineering company Arup and it was launched on the 10 June 2000.
There are many differences between our bridge and other bridges. One being location. Another one being that thing that was sacrificed for it. Another one being cost. Also another difference would be weight and capacity, and the size or length.
In the spring of 1989, the construction of the new bridge began. The base of the Trent River was a flotilla of barges carrying the workers, cranes and equipment needed to prepare the temporary pillars that would support the new bridge, as well as maneuver the huge steel girders into place for the new bridge. It was an awesome sight for the entire town, as we watched barges float the steel girders into the harbour, one section being 74 meters in length and two more that were 54 metres each. The new steel box girder bridge had a total length of 182 metres and weighed 2,950 metric tonnes (Anderson & Trenkler, 1991). Temporary cement pillars were poured to support
The design error along with a few other factors led to the collapse of the bridge. When the bridge first opened, the traffic deck had 2 lanes of traffic going in each direction for a total of 4 lanes. However, in 1998, the bridge was renovated so that there were 4 lanes of traffic going in each direction for a total of 8 lanes. Along with a few other bridge renovations, the weight of the bridge was significantly increased. Also, the rush hour traffic and the construction vehicles located on the bridge for repairs during the day of collapse added a considerable amount of weight too.
Brunel’s solutions were groundbreaking and critics often questioned his designs. The Clifton Suspension Bridge had the longest span of any bridge in the world when it was completed; the Maidenhead Bridge was both the largest spanning brick arch bridge and the first to use a flattened arch form; and the Royal Albert Bridge was built using lenticular iron trusses.
The man who drew the designs for the bridge was John Low Waddell. The people of Duluth were eager to build the lift bridge, which would have been about 130 feet wide. However, the War Department declined the design that John Waddell made, and the project was canceled before it could be built. Waddell's design went on to be built in Chicago. New plans were later drawn up for a structure that would bring people from one side to the other. This type of bridge was first demonstrated in Bilbao's Vizcaya Bridge in 1893. The Lift Bridge was then finally completed in 1905. After the history is learned the structure is very important as well to know. The height of the Lift Bridge is 180 feet when completely raised and the length is 386 feet and weighs approximately 900 tons. The bridge is very similar to the only other one of its kind in the world, which is in Rouen, France. The last and most important thing that
John roebling was an immigrant from germany, john did not invent the suspension bridge but his bridges made him famous in the 1800’s. As a kid roebling dreamed of building bridges, he turned his dreams into a reality. The Brooklyn Bridge was built over the East River linking Manhattan and Brooklyn. The construction of the brooklyn bridge started in January 3, 1870 and was completed May 24, 1883. The civil war delayed the construction of the bridge. At least two dozen people died, including the bridges original designer
My suspension bridge will be the Clifton Suspension Bridge, this bridges is located at Bristol, England. This bridge was first opened in 1864,it is 212 metres long and has a width of 9.4 metres this is why this bridge is so well acclaimed due to it age and its size. This bridge crosses the River Avon. This bridge was originally meant to be made in 1831 but this was stopped by the Bristol riots, after the Bristol riots the design was charged slightly because of new technologies to strengthen the bridge. Avon Gorge came up with the idea to make the bridge in 1753 when he came up with an idea to make a bridge over the Bristol river, made from stone and which was delayed because of enhances in technology. deck is suspended by 81 matching
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
This paper explores the construction aspects of arch bridges, specifically the New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville, West Virginia. Arch bridges are one of the oldest types of bridges and have been used for thousands of years across the world. These structures can be constructed of stone, brick, reinforced concrete or steel and can span thousands of feet across wide rivers or deep valleys. The construction of arch bridges relies on the concept of compression and begins with the load at the top of the arch, or keystone. The New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia was completed in 1977 and is a true engineering marvel. Its construction and existence allows drivers and cargo to traverse the New River Gorge efficiently and safely, an otherwise impassable obstacle.
The “Pratt” Truss bridge invented by Thomas and Caleb Pratt in the 1840’s is a unique bridge that combines lightweight and strong structural support providing a very supportive lightweight wide bridge. The bridge uses both diagonal and vertical beams forming a triangular structure. The diagonal and vertical shape of the beams are very strong and light because the triangular shape that the beams make are ridged, utilizing a minimal amount of timbers. The material used in these bridges is also a big part of what makes it unique to other bridges. In the early nineteenth century a majority of bridges was consisted of stone, but wood and iron were better than resisting tension, this is why the United States had many Truss bridges. Truss bridges can also be built basically anywhere. These bridges can span far or short as they want while maintaining structural integrity. To describe the Truss bridge in a few words or phrases, I would say that they are very economically friendly, strong, light, and very versatile.