In the past week we have been working on combining our bridge design ideas together to form the most cost-effective bridge possible, while still maintaining structural safety. While we basically now have our design, the next week or two will consist of the transition from the drawing board to the build. We will asuure that our design has no known flaws and is ready to be constructed.
The West Point Bridge Design program is a tool that can be used by civil engineers to assist in designing a bridge. Within the program are many realistic features that are crucial to the bridge building world, such as the cost breakdown of materials, strengths of different metals, and detailed load test results. While these are features are great, one thing that WPBD does not incorporate is horizontal force. A good example of external force is wind. Though a bridge may hold up with just force from the road, it may not be able to withstand the hurricane force winds that are possible in many areas of the world. This is a very important factor when designing a bridge in the real world. Overall, I would say that WPBD does a good job at designing the basics of a bridge, but it is not sufficient enough for a real world design.
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