Stephen Young

29.3.05

Bridge Project

Finished constructing our bridge yesterday! Sweet sweet god how it has taken its toll on me....

Originally, we predicted it would hold 605lbs. After decided to reduce the load by a "reality factor" of 5%, we officially predicted 588lbs. [The bridge held 595...! only seven pounds off]

Here's a picture of the bridge....



Basically our design was a modified I-beam. The top of the beam was approximately five times thicker than the bottom. The beam was non-prismatic - with an increased number of layers in the middle section of the bridge (on the top). Although allowing us to save material, the changing height of the top flange did not provide a clear benefit to justify the difficulty of construction and analysis.