Week 8: Bridge Process

In the past week our group has been working on building the best 3' span bridge possible. We have experimented with many different design options and we think we have found one that will perform  satisfactorily. In our week 9 lab we will test this bridge to see the results of our efforts. Through designinf these bridges I have learned that the bridge design process is not as simple as throwing together a structure and seeing if it holds up. I have learned about the different loads that a bridge faces over the course of its life such as compression forces and tension forces resulting from the load, and also lateral forces caused by elements such as wind. Some of the main things that i have learned though is that the one smallest issue with a bridge can cause catastropic failure. Bridge designers learn from these failures though. While hopefully these failures do not occur on a full scale active bridge, the use of breaking scaled down bridges is the best way to learn about how to improve them.