The Newspaper bridge project is a project where students are given the challenge to make a bridge using newspaper, straws, and tape. Each material has a price. 1 sheet of paper $10, 1 straw $1, and 10 cm of tape $2. Students were given the challenge to make a bridge only using $25 of materials. In this essay, I will be explaining the process which my group constructed our bridge for this project. And answer the question; How to construct a newspaper bridge that will hold the most weight and is cost efficient with the given materials?
My group's bridge held a lot more weight than I thought. Our group tried different ideas for our prototype. At first, we wanted to only use straws for our bridge. We first tried to weave straws together.
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They were using all of the money but had a low-cost effectiveness ratio. Since their bridge was very heavy and was mostly made out of only newspaper their bridge was probably very weak because it had no reinforcements. My group used straws to reinforce our rods the same way that steel bars are used in concrete to reinforce it. Without the reinforcement, the beams would crack because of the load causing the beam to be in tension. Their bridges were made with only paper with tape holding it together. As compared to my group's bridge we tried our best to reinforce our bridge with straws. With no reinforcements, their bridge collapsed under the weight put on it. Other groups tried to make a bridge with the least amount of money hold the most weight. In the future, I would try to make a bridge this way. An example of this would be the group of Tucker, Hilary, and Jack in G band. They were runner-up to us in the strength efficiency ratio with 1167 g held/1g of mass, but their bridge only cost $14 and their cost-effectiveness ratio was 1000g/$1. The amount of paper they used caused their bridge to be a little bit heavier than ours. I find it surprising how their bridge held so much since it was not like any of the other bridge. I think making a bridge this way would be more of a challenge in the
The original design of the bridge was a two cell prestressed concrete box girder with three main spans (as mentioned above). However, as most of the water's commercial and pleasure boats use no pilot or tug, the potential environmental impact of a pier collision with possible subterranean damage, was deemed unacceptable.
Calculations were performed to determine the effectiveness of the design of the platform. Allowing for a safety factor of 1.5 times the design weight of 10kg and considering the bridge must not be overdesigned; plans were made for the bridge to fail at 25kg, 2.5 times that of the design weight. According to the calculations, the bridge would hold a load of over 15kg and experience failure at 20kg in the members. These calculations were later disproven in the testing, breaking 8kg earlier than expected, due to unforseen errors. An analysis of the bridge design and calculations has been included at the end of this report.
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.
In the middle of nowhere, in that vast expanse of trees, lies The Bridge. Nobody knows it as any other name. It stretches across the Dead River, just sitting there waiting for someone new to find it. At one time it was driven over constantly, a way of travel for the inhabitants who are crazy enough to live out there. But now it is just there, a giant chunk of metal, rusting away into nothing. Occasionally it is used for things like fishing, or as a
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
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
For smaller spans, the Inca simply laid out a large stone. For large gaps, however, stones were not long enough, so they made bridges out of the most abundant material they had: grass. They wove together long fibers to form thick ropes. These ropes were then used to create the floor and guide ropes. Although they sagged deeply and were at times unstable, the bridges were very safe because of a permanent attendant, who was there “not only to service the ropes but to help travelers and caravans cross” (Isbell n.p.). They were also able to hold up a large amount of weight. According to a study by John Ochsendorf, a professor at MIT, “the bridge's main cables [could] support 16,000 pounds, and he believes the cables of the sturdiest Incan bridges, incorporating leather, vines and branches, could have supported 200,000 pounds.” (Clough 8). The bridges were not difficult to create, and some communities even developed an annual ritual to cut down the bridge, let it flow down the river, and then construct a new
Before steel bridges were built, trade had to be done through the use of ships and boats, slowing down the process. However, through the use of steel bridges, “the cost of travel and trade” has decreased by an enormous amount (“Introduction: What are bridges for?). Michael G. Barker, a professor in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Wyoming, collaborated with an engineering consultant and conducted some research on steel bridges. He studied two bridges-- one steel, and the other concrete, which were both built in 2012 in the same location, with the same dimensions, and looked very similar. In his study, he found that “the steel . . . superstructure provided a 25.8 percent cost savings, with an overall 19.3 percent savings in the total cost of the structure” than the concrete bridge. This clearly shows that steel bridges are not very costly as other types of
A considerable obstacle to the Legions was the number of small rivers and streams. Gradually, the legions became better at engineering, until every soldier was able to complete his part of a simple pontoon bridge, as shown here: Also taken from Trajan's column. These pontoon bridges were constructed from boats, over which planking was laid. When horses were required to cross, a small layer of earth was sometimes put on the bridge, to reassure them. Stone Roman bridges remain famous for their durability to this day, and their three or four arches was a roman concept, so that weight on the top of the bridge merely forced the keystones of the
If a bridge isn’t built right, with the correct physics and design, it is not going to be a stable, safe passage. The pillars on the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge weren’t deep enough in the ground, and they were not close enough together. As mentioned previously, this caused cracks in the bridge. The cracks were repaired, and the pillars were installed deeper and actually strengthened the bridge. However, these corrections proved to be inadequate when the Skyway was struck by the freight ship. When looking at old pictures of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, it is very evident that the gaps between the pillars were too wide. When the ship collided with the bridge, the stress load was too much on the remaining pillars, and the bridge instantly collapsed, with a large piece of the roadway actually left sitting on the very ship that had just hit it. The way the pillars were installed on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, caused pressure that placed so much torque, or twist, on the concrete pillars. Once the pillars on the bridge started cracking, they bent the I-beam so much that when the tanker hit the beam the bridge collapsed. Fearing for their own safety, due to questions about the stability of the remaining bridge, rescuers were unable to search for survivors underneath the area of the destroyed bridge. 36 people were killed in this tragic
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).
The bridge has a very well designed ‘sustainability’ concept, relying on upcycled materials to complete the bridge. These upcycled materials consist of the wood, the fishing net, the oil barrels and the plastic shielding for the barrels. These materials can be used for functional roles in the design, such as platforms, floatation, safety lines across hand rails, and so on. The bridge’s sustainability concept can be further supported by the ease of replacing materials, and not throwing them in the bin. The materials such as wood, plastic and pieces of metallic bolts and nuts can be recycled and reused for other purposed such as furniture, storage or completely recycled back into a molten form for the metallic objects.
adopted for the Rion-Antirion bridge is further described in details to highlight how capacity design
We needed to fully utilise our knowledge by applying all the basic concepts in physics such as dynamic equilibrium and knowing the stiffness of the materials to build strong miniature bridge using given items to withstand the weight applied.