Bridges@ABHISHEK

Brooklyn Bridge, spanning the East River, in 2007.

Motor vehicles (cars only)

Elevated trains (until 1944)
Carries
Streetcars (until 1950)
Pedestrians, and Bicycles

Crosses East River

Locale New York City (Manhattan–Brooklyn)

Maintained by New York City Department of Transportation

Designer John Augustus Roebling

Design Suspension/Cable-stay Hybrid

Total length 5,989 feet (1825 m)[1]

Width 85 feet (26 m)

Longest span 1,595 feet 6 inches (486.3 m)

Clearance below 135 feet (41 m) at mid-span

AADT 145,000

Opened May 24, 1883

Toll Free both ways

Coordinates 40°42′23″N 73°59′51″W / 40.706344°N

73.9974
 Construction
The Brooklyn Bridge opened to great fanfare in May
1883. The names of John Roebling, Washington
Roebling, and Emily Warren Roebling are inscribed
on the structure as its builders

Construction began on January 3, 1870. The

Brooklyn Bridge was completed thirteen years later
and was opened for use on May 24, 1883. The
Brooklyn Bridge might not have been built had it not
been for the assistance of Emily Warren Roebling,
who provided the critical written link between her
husband, Washington Roebling (the Chief Engineer),
and engineers on-site.[8] Most history books cite
Washington Roebling's father John Roebling and
Washington Roebling as the bridge’s builders. Early
into construction, however, John Roebling’s foot
Plan of one tower for slipped into a group of pylons from the shake of an
the Brooklyn Bridge, 1867 incoming ferry.[9] This badly crushed his toes,
causing those toes to be amputated, leaving him
incapacitated; he later died of an infection related to his injury and leaving
his son, Washington Roebling, in charge of the bridge. The actual
construction started under the younger Roebling. Not long after taking
charge of the bridge, Washington Roebling suffered a paralyzing injury as
well, the result of decompression sickness. This condition plagued many of
the underwater workers, in different capacities, as the condition was
relatively unknown at the time and in fact was first called "caisson disease"
by the project physician Dr. Andrew Smith.With both men out of commission,
Emily Warren Roebling provided critical assistance in providing the
communications between her husband and the engineers on-site. Under her
husband’s guidance, Emily had studied higher mathematics, the calculations
of catenary curves, the strengths of materials, bridge specifications, and
the intricacies of cable construction. [12] [13][14] She spent the next 11 years
assisting Washington Roebling in the supervision of the bridge’s
construction.
Hold up a chain by both ends and you'll get a curve. What kind of
curve is it? You might say it is a parabola - Galileo Galilee believed it
was a parabola. Yet, Galileo was wrong!!!! That curve is NOT a
parabola. It is a catenary.

It makes sense that you would think that the curved chain is a
parabola. Both the catenary and the parabola have similar
properties. Both curves have a single low point. They both have a
vertical line of symmetry, they at least appear to be continuous and
differentiable throughout, and the slope is steeper as we move away
from the low point, but it never becomes vertical.

So, how is the curve of the cable in a suspension bridge a parabola?

When the structure is being built and the main cables are attached to
the towers, the curve is a catenary. But when the cables are attached
to the deck with hangers, it is no longer a catenary. The curves of
the cables become the curve of a parabola. Unlike the catenary, which
is curving under its own weight, the parabola is curving not just
under its own weight, but also curving from holding up the weight of
the deck. The cable of a suspension bridge is under tension from
holding up the bridge. Therefore, the cables of a suspension bridge
are a parabola, because the weight of the deck is equally distributed
on the curve.

1. This example of ropes that are spanning two cliffs shows what
basically is a catenary.

2. This is a picture of the master mechanic E.F. Farrington traveling

the length of the newly installed cable of the Brooklyn Bridge. The
cable is an example of a catenary, curving under the weight of itself
(the weight of Farrington is insignificant).
3. This picture shows the deck being added to the cables of the
Brooklyn Bridge. The catenary is slowly becoming a parabola

Up close, the suspension bridge is an amazing and beautiful structure that

can span rivers and connect cities hundreds of miles apart. From a distance
they look fragile, hanging from almost transparent threads. Despite their
seeming fragility, suspension bridges are very, very strong thanks to their
design and the materials used to build them. These awe-inspiring bridges
alone balance the forces of tension and compression, managing to stay up
through hurricanes, storms, and earth-quakes.

The History

The first suspension bridges were not

the imposing steel and stone structures
you think. In fact, the first suspension
bridges are the handing vine bridges
found in South America, Africa, and
Asia. Thousands of years ago, people
hung cables, fashioned from twisted
vines, from trees on one side of a river
or canyon to join trees on the other
side. The cable-vines held up strong
twigs and planks of wood to create a
platform. These early suspension
bridges were important for enabling
people to travel faster across rivers
and canyons.

Now, rivers can also be crossed using suspension bridges - albeit, bridges
that are a lot more sophisticated, stronger, and longer. John Roebling
dreamed up the first modern suspension bridge in 1867. He believed that a
long suspension bridge, today called the Brooklyn Bridge, could connect
Manhatten and Brooklyn, New York. Other engineers believed that the feat
couldn't be done. But Roebling spent two years planning and checking every
detail and calculation twice.

It took 14 more years to build the bridge, but John Roebling didn't live to
see it finished. Just two weeks after the project began, Roebling injured his
right foot in an accident at the bridge site. Doctors amputated his toes, but
his foot became infected, and he died.

His son Washington, also an engineer and

bridge builder, took over his father's dream.
But during the first three years on the
project, he became sick and was bedridden.
Although, not an engineer, Emily Warren
Roebling, his wife, took over the project. She
soon became knowledgable in the language of bridges and an expert in
bridge construction. She would meet with the engineers at the bridge site,
and then return to her husband's bedside, bringing him news and questions.
Emily oversaw the completion of the bridge, and Washington, who
orchestrated the construction, never left his bed the whole time the
Brroklyn Brdige was built.

Anatomy of a Bridge
Deck - For pedestrian, train, and/or automobile traffic.
Supports - The towers are the supports.
Span - Describes the distance between towers.
Foundations - The supports rest on the foundations.
Approaches - The approaches are the roads leading up to the bridge.
Long wire cables are strung over the towers and secured to the
anchors on land.
Hangers run from the cables to the deck hold it up.
How They Work
Any bridge can only stay up if it can support its own weight (called the dead
load) and the weight of all the traffic that crosses it (called the live
load). The load creates 2 major forces that act on parts of a bridge. The 2
forces are Compression and Tension:

Compression - The force of compression

pushes down on the suspension bridge's deck.
but because its a suspended roadway, the
cables transfer the compression to the
towers, which dissipate the compression
directly into the earth where they're firmly
entrenched.

Tension - The supporting cables, running

between 2 anchorages, are the lucky
recipients of the tension forces. The cables
are literally stretched from the weight of the
bridge and its traffic as they run from
anchorage to anchorage. The anchorages are
also under tension, but since they, like the
towers, are held firmly to the earth, the tension they experience is
dissipated.

Suspension bridges are capable of spanning long distances and actually

are the only type of bridge to span the longest distances possible for a
bridge. This is because the shape of the suspension bridge is actually one of
the most stable structures there is. The cable of the bridge is inherently
stable against any disturbance if it is thick enough to withstand any
tension. The forces (tension mostly) are carried to the tops of the high
towers (which should and usually are resilient against flexure, buckling,
and oscillation) through the cables, instead of being directed towards the
ground - which would happen if the bridge is an arch bridge. But what sets
the suspension bridge apart from most conventional bridges is that all the
forces do not "internally-cancel." Instead, the forces are directed in a way
that the tensions are resisted by the ground, which is in compression!

-----ABHISHEK