When I was creating this bridge I wanted to see how cheap I
could make it. I first stated with a
Warren deck truss, but I soon realized that the supports on the bottom would
not be enough to support the bridges own weight. The next thing I did was added supports also
on the top of the bridge. This was now
enough to support the bridges own weight as well as the truck that went
across. After I got the base design down
I started to play around with different sizes and beams. The bridge is carbon steel through out. The top supports are hollow tubes and most
are about 55x55x2 with the exception to the beams in the middle. Beams 14 and 18 are both solid bars because
they take a lot of pressure and hollow tubes would not cut it for their
specific job. Beams 15 and 16 are hollow
tube but are slightly bigger than the rest at 140x140x7. On the bottom part of the bridge I played
around with sizes a lot. Every beam is a
solid bar because they take more weight than the top of the bridge. The sizes of the beams vary because I tried
to make them as small as possible to make the bridge as cheap as possible.
The final
cost of my bridge was $282,091.88. This
cost could be lower if I switched things around, like hollow tubes and solid
bars, types of metals, and different designs.
I think that I reached my goal of making the bridge as cheap as
possible. This is technically a safe
bridge but I would not feel confortable crossing it because it is on the edge
of collapsing every time the truck crosses.
While making this bridge I learned that there are a ton of different
ways to make a bridge and there are a ton of variables that go into making a
bridge like material, size, and type of beam. There is always a way to make a bridge better or more cost effective.
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