GOBRIDGE CHALLENGE

Millennium Bridge, Gateshead, England Photographer Keith Hall ©

CIVIL ENGINEERING

• Transport – roads, bridges, tunnels, canals, airports and sea ports

• Water – water storage and drainage, sewerage systems, and sea and flood defences

• Geotechnical – mining, earthworks, soil and rock mechanics

• Energy – nuclear, onshore and offshore wind, hydropower and marine.

• Structural – buildings, bridges, towers, dams, tunnels, retaining walls and other infrastructure.

CIVIL ENGINEERS…

• use maths, mechanics and physics

• are creative and good at problem-solving

• understand the importance of teamwork

• are never bored as their work is so varied

• can be based in an office or on a construction site

• can work near to home or travel all over the world.

BRIDGE TYPES

• Beam bridges

• Box girder bridges

• Arch bridges

• Truss bridges

• Suspension bridges

• Cable-stayed bridges.

Millennium Bridge, London, England Photographer KlickingKarl ©

BEAM BRIDGES

Beam bridge over a rural roadA simple bridge solution

BEAM BRIDGES

• A beam bridge is the simplest and oldest kind of bridge

• The further apart a beam bridge’s supports, the weaker it becomes

Cheap to construct

Easy to manufacture

Not very beautiful.

BOX GIRDER BRIDGES

Cleddau Bridge, Pembrokeshire, Wales A cross section of a box girder bridge

BOX GIRDER BRIDGES

• Similar to beam bridges

• With well-designed girders, a box girder bridge will be stronger than a simple beam bridge

Cheap to build

Easy to manufacture

Not very beautiful.

The girder needs careful design.

• To improve the performance of a simple beam or box girder bridge, the roadway has to be supported.

• There are three basic ways to do this:

SUPPORTING BEAM AND BOX GIRDERS

• arches

• trusses

• cables

ARCH BRIDGES

Wye Bridge, Hereford, England Glenfinnan Viaduct, West Highlands, Scotland

Photographer Garth Newton © Photographer de:Benutzer:Nicolas17 ©

ARCH BRIDGES

• Arch bridges are one of the oldest types of bridge and have great natural strength

• Instead of pushing straight down, the weight of an arch bridge is carried outwards along the curve of the arch to the supports at each end

• These supports (called abutments) carry the load and keep the ends of the bridge from spreading out.

ARCH BRIDGES

Tyne Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, England Iron bridge over the River Seven, Telford, Wales

Photographer User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0 © Photographer Tagishsimon ©

UNDER OVER

ARCH BRIDGES

Very strong if well designed

Can be beautiful

Tend to be very heavy

Need extremely strong abutments.

TRUSS BRIDGES

Grand Union canal bridge, London Queensferry Blue Bridge, Flintshire, Wales

Photographer John S Turner ©

TRUSS BRIDGES

• They are mostly empty space, but are very strong

• Solid components (beams, arches etc.) are replaced by triangulated assemblies of thin (usually metal) members. .

TRUSS BRIDGES

Very good strength-to-weight performance

Possibility of duplicated parts reduces manufacturing costs

Can be incorporated into almost any design

Can be very beautiful

Lots of parts to be manufactured.

Suspension bridge, Inverness, Scotland

SUSPENSION BRIDGES

Suspension footbridge, River Wye, Herefordshire, England

Photographer John S Turner ©

SUSPENSION BRIDGES

Aesthetically pleasing, light and strong

Can span distances far longer than any other kind of bridge

The most expensive type of bridge to build

May wobble if badly designed.

CABLE-STAYED BRIDGES

Clark Bridge, Alton, Illinois, USA Second Severn Crossing, England - Wales

PARALLEL

Photographer Colin Madge ©

RADIAL

CABLE-STAYED BRIDGES

Undeniably beautiful

Compared to suspension bridges…

Require less cable

Are easier and faster to build

Need stronger towers.

HYBRID BRIDGES

Adding concrete pillars to the Albert Bridge, London makes this a hybrid of beam, suspension and cable-stayed.

Photographer David Iliff ©

YOURTEAM CHALLENGE

Millennium Bridge, Gateshead, England Photographer Keith Hall ©

Design and build a bridge using limited resources and to a given timescale.

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

• Your bridge must span a gap of 0.5m and can only be constructed using the materials provided

• Your bridge must be strong enough to support a 100g weight (two Mars bars!) placed at the centre of the span, and wide enough to ‘drive’ the toy car along its full length

• Your bridge will first be tested to see if it supports the 100g weight. It will then be tested to destruction to achieve bonus points.

RESOURCES

Each team is allowed the following materials:

• A limited amount of newspaper

• 4 sheets of A4 card

• 20 art straws

• 2 metres of string

• A roll of sticky tape

• Scissors

• Pencils

• Bridge design sheet

PROJECT TIMETABLE

• Team consultation 5 minutes

• Design session/prototype 15 minutes

All prototypes MUST be destroyed before actual construction time commences.

• Construction session 40 minutes

• Test session 15 minutes

• Discussion/questions 10 minutes

• Clear away.

CONSTRUCTGO