The Main Aspects In Bridge Engineering
The use of bridges has become essential in the everyday life of some people due to the fact that it allows people to travel over areas where it would be difficult to cross without it. There are a few essential things that engineers and architects have to take into consideration while building and drawing the blueprint for the bridge in mind, those things are support for budget, environment and weather. The reasons that these things are important is because for budget they would want the bridge to be cost effective and not too expensive and they also want it to be effective and safe, the environment because when making the bridge the engineers have to build the bridge to be able to fit an area that may be hard to cross otherwise and finally weather, weather is one of the considerations because the engineers need to construct the bridge so that it can withstand snow, rain and wind without failure.
During the process of thinking about what bridges would be used for engineers and architects have to substitute some aspects of the bridge to increase in other parts of the bridge like if the general public wants the bridge to look nice the engineers would most likely have to remove materials from some parts of the bridge in order to add to the aesthetics in the bridge or vice versa like if the engineers needed to subtract from the aesthetics in order to improve the general construction of the bridge which could improve the bridges strength and life span. “Efficiency is a scientific principle that puts a value on reducing materials while increasing performance. ” This quote is talking about efficiency and how it is important while constructing a bridge. The budget for bridges is an important aspect while building a bridge due to the fact that the construction workers have a limited amount of resources to create something that can not only withstand the weight of itself but it can also withstand the weight of thousands of vehicles crossing it every day. Architects need to make sure the bridge is able to hold itself so that it doesn’t collapse and cause massive amounts of damage and there are four main ideas architects can choose from when creating a bridge those four ideas are Beams, Arches, Trusses and suspension (BATS) those are all different types of bridges that are able to be created with a limited budget.
The next consideration that engineers and architects need to keep in mind is the environment in which the bridge would be built in and the reason that this is an aspect that they would look into is because while constructing a bridge it may be difficult to place supports or things of that sort due to where the bridge is placed because the bridge may be needed over a canyon oe a gorge where the ground or rock that the object is being placed may not be stable so they may have to move more objects than they originally thought that they would have needed to. How long the bridge would need to be is also another part of environment because if the area that needs to be crossed is shorter than the budget may be lowered and they might be able to use less materials for one bridge but if it's over a longer area like across the water like through a highway they would need to put more supports so that the bridge wouldn’t collapse “environmental conditions, and the physical nature of the building site (such as the geometry of the approaches, the strength of the ground, and the depth to firm bedrock) also determine the best bridge design for a particular situation. ”
The final consideration that engineers take into consideration is how weather could affect the bridge. Many bridges are made to withstand basic storms like heavy rain and snow but extreme winds can affect a bridge drastically if the bridge is not constructed properly like “the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie, in Washington State in 1940. ” the reason that the bridge collapsed was due to strong winds that made the bridge physically sway and twist up until the time that the bridge finally gave way and collapsed. Over time weather can affect bridges other than wind rust and usual weathering on metal can also cause the bridge to weaken, that is why it is required to have maintenance checks done onto the bridge after it has been up and if the bridge is not up to par then construction workers would have to go back and do maintenance on the bridge until it is safe to be used again.
In conclusion there are three main considerations that architects and engineers have to think of before constructing a bridge those three are budget, environment and weather all of these considerations can help a bridge if they are fully thought out and made without failure. Budget is the amount of money that is spent on the bridges construction in total which allows the construction workers to have a limited amount of supplies to allow the bridge to be aesthetically pleasing or functional. In all bridges there are things that have to be substituted so satisfy the needs for other parts of the bridge, Environment is where the bridge is constructed and how the bridge would be constructed successfully without collapsing on itself. And finally weather, weathering on a bridge is how the natural world affects the bridge, most modern bridges are able to withstand most forces of nature like snow rain and wind.
