This last week in engineering the group sat down together to analyze our west point bridge design bridges. The group decided to use the bridge I created as the lowest cost. In the next weeks we will need to take truss designs from what we have learned and use them to create a KNEX truss system. Our group was in the top 3 for the lowest bridge cost which is really good. The entire group is focusing well on our goals and striving to do the best possible. Hopefully we can put the same effort into the KNEX project.
West Point Bridge Design is a program that can be used by Civil Engineers to get a general idea of how truss systems work on bridges. It is also user friendly for people who do not know anything about bridges. The WPBD program does a good job at simulating the stress applied to a bridge by the dead load and a live load driving over it. It is able to calculate accurate costs for a bridge and it helps the user to see the amount of force on individual members of a truss system. The problem with WPBD is that it does not take any consideration into the trusses that run from side to side across the bridge. This doesn't allow us to see how weight can affect the bridge from side to side or how wind would affect it. Due to this WPBD is not very realistic when compared to real life bridges.
No comments:
Post a Comment