Assignment No. 1 On Bridge Engineering

E
ducation. Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation

mpowerment. Lucena City, Philippines
xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

CHED CEB Res. 076-2009
ASSIGNMENT NUMBER 1
IN
BRIDGE BUILDING
“DIFFERENT TYPES OF BRIDGES”
SUBMITTED BY:
JOHN LAWRENCE S. IBASCO
V-BSCE
SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. CIELITO V. MALIGALIG
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation
University Site, Brgy. IbabangDupay, Lucena City, Philippines; Telephone No. (042) 710-3151
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Types of Bridges
Bridges by Structure
 Arch bridges – These bridges uses arch as a main structural component (arch is always
located below the bridge, never above it). They are made with one or more hinges,
depending of what kind of load and stress forces they must endure. Examples of arch
bridge are “Old Bridge” in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and The Hell Gate Bridge in
New York
Arch Bridge - Types of Arch Bridges
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Arch bridge is one of the most popular types of bridges, which came into use over 3000 years
ago and remained in height of popularity until industrial revolution and invention of advanced
materials enabled architect to create other modern bridge designs. However, even today arc
bridges remain in use, and with the help of modern materials, their arches can be build on much
larger scales.
The basic principle of arch bridge is its curved design, which does not push load forces straight
down, but instead they are conveyed along the curve of the arch to the supports on each end.
These supports (called abutments) carry the load of entire bridge and are responsible for holding
the arch in the precise position unmoving position. Conveying of forces across the arch is done
via central keystone on the top of the arch. Its weight pushes the surrounding rocks down and
outward, making entire structure very rigid and strong.
Because of this design, stone and wood arch bridges become very popular during the Roman
Empire, whose architects managed to build over 1000 stone arch bridges in Europe, Asia and
North Africa. Many of those bridges remain standing even today, giving us the chance to
personally see the wonders of the ancient architecture. Roman designs were usually made with
semicircular arches, although several segmented arch bridges were made during their reign.
These segmental arch bridges had one crucial design advantage which separated them from
ordinary semicircular bridges – they enabled bridge builders to more arch of the bridge much
higher and lower the mass of the entire structure. These changes enabled bridges to much easier
survive stresses of floods and strong rivers. During the life of Roman Empire, they built many
wondrous bridges, lengthy aqueducts with multiple arches, bridges with flood openings on the
piers, and many others.
 Beam bridges – Very basic type of bridges that are supported by several beams of
various shapes and sizes. They can be inclined or V shaped. Example of beam bridge is
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in southern Louisiana.
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Beam Bridge Facts, History and DesignCHED CEB Res. 076-2009
Beam bridge or girder bridge is the simplest and oldest bridge type. It generally consists of one
or more spans which are supported by an abutment or pier at each end.
The first beam bridges built by humans appeared as an imitation of nature – prehistoric humans
saw a tree that had fallen across a stream and used the same technique nut in places where it was
convenient for them. Herodotus, historian from the ancient Greece, was the first to leave the
written document about the bridge in 484 BC. Bridge he wrote about had been built across the
Euphrates River in 8th century BC and was made from wood and stone. Ancient Romans are
famous for their arch bridges made of stone and concrete but they also begun with simpler bridge
types. The earliest known ancient Roman beam bridge was built across the Tiber River in 7th
century BC and was known as “Pons Sublicius” which literally means “bridge made of wooden
beams.” Romans were also the first to use cofferdams to construct columns. They would drive a
circular construction, made of wood and lined with clay, into the riverbed and empty it of water
with a pump. That would leave the place to pour the concrete in and would also serve as a mold.
When French engineer Hubert Gautier wrote the first book about building bridges in 18th
century, bridge building became more of an exact science. Next book, “A Work on Bridge
Building” written by American Squire Whipple improved this further by being the first text on
analytical methods for calculating the stresses and strains in a bridge.
 Truss bridges – Very popular bridge designs that uses diagonal mesh of posts above the
bridge. The two most common designs are the king posts (two diagonal posts supported
by single vertical post in the center) and queen posts (two diagonal posts, two vertical
pots and horizontal post that connect two vertical posts at the top).
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CHED
Truss Bridge - Types, History, Facts and CEB Res. 076-2009
Design
Truss bridge is a type of bridge whose main element is a truss which is a structure of connected
elements that form triangular units. Truss is used because it is a very rigid structure and it
transfers the load from a single point to a much wider area. Truss bridges appeared very early in
the history of modern bridges and are economic to construct because they use materials
efficiently.
Before Industrial revolution (19th century), almost all bridges in use were made of stone. But
wood and iron can resist tension and compression better and stone and United States had much
wood so they made many wooden bridges in those times and most of them were truss bridges.
Town's lattice truss, a very simple variant of truss, was patented in 1820. First half of 19th
century saw very few truss bridges made of iron although the first patent for an iron truss bride
was issued to Squire Whipple in 1841. But metal slowly started to replace wood, and wrought
iron bridges started appearing in the U.S. in the 1870s only to be replaced by steel in 1880s and
1890s. In time some places (like Pennsylvania) continued building truss bridges for long spans
well into 1930s, while other (like Michigan) started building standard plan concrete girder
and beam bridges.
 Cantilever bridges – Similar in appearance to arch bridges, but they support their load
not trough vertical bracing but trough diagonal bracing. They often use truss formation
both below and above the bridge. Example of cantilever bridge is Queensboro Bridge in
New York City.
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Cantilever Bridge Facts, Design and History
Cantilever bridge is a bridge whose main elements are cantilevers (structures that are anchored at
only one end while the other projects horizontally into space). These bridges can use beams for
smaller (pedestrian) bridges or trusses made of structural steel, or box girders of prestressed
concrete for larger bridges that carry road or rail traffic.
First cantilever bridges appeared in 19th century when a need for longer bridges presented itself.
To solve the problem of length, engineers of that time found out that many supports would
distribute the loads among them and help to achieve length. Predecessors of cantilever bridges
were bridges with hinge points that were placed mid-span. The one to be the first to invent and
patent a cantilever bridge was Heinrich Gerber which did it in 1866. His first cantilever bridge
was the Hassfurt Bridge over the Main River in Germany. It wasn't too impressive by today's
standards - it had 38 meters in length but is considered the first modern cantilever bridge. Other
early cantilever bridges were the High Bridge of Kentucky, designed by C. Shaler Smith in 1877,
the Niagara Cantilever Bridge designed by Charles Conrad Schneider in 1883, and the
Poughkeepsie Bridge designed by John Francis O'Rourke and Pomeroy P. Dickinson in 1889.
The Forth Bridge, the bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, is one of the most
famous early cantilever bridges and it is that with a reason. It is a railway bridge built in 1890
whose full length is 2,528.7 m while its longest span has length of 520 m. It remained the bridge
with the longest span in the world until Quebec Bridge wasn't built in 1919 with its span of 549
m.
 Tied Arch Bridge - Similar to arch bridges, but they transfer weight of the bridge and traffic
load to the top chord that is connected to the bottom cords in bridge foundation. They are
often called bowstring arches or bowstring bridges.
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Tied-arch Bridge Facts, History and Examples
Tied-arch bridge (also called bowstring-arch or bowstring-girder bridge) is a type of bridge that
has an arch rib on each side of the roadway (deck), and one tie beam on each arches, that support
deck. Vertical ties connected to the arches support deck from above. It can be considered a
bridge between arch bridge and a suspension bridge. They work like arch bridges on one hand,
because force of the load on the deck (thrust) is translated as tension to the curved top chord by
vertical ties of the deck which try to flatten the arch and to push its tips outward into the
abutments. Tips of the arch of this bridge are tied together by a bottom chord. This allows the
bridge to be constructed with less robust foundations because force on the abutments is low.
Tied-arch bridges can be built on elevated piers or in areas of unstable soil. One more positive
attribute of this type of bridge is that it does not depend on horizontal compression forces for its
integrity which allows them to be built off-site and then transported into place. But tied-arch
bridges are not perfect. They can have poor welds at the connection between the arch rib and the
tie girders, and at the connection between the arch and vertical ties. These welds, after some time
have to be repaired which is costly, time-consuming and an inconvenience. Construction and
design of this bridge is non-redundant which means that if even one of the two tie girders fails
the whole structure will collapse without anything to work as safety. As a last problem, tied arch
bridges are more expensive to build compared to the other types of bridges of the same length.
 Suspension bridges – Bridges that use ropes or cables from the vertical suspender to hold
the weight of bridge deck and traffic. Example of suspension bridge is Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco.
Suspension Bridge - From Earliest to Modern Designs
Suspension bridge is a type of bridge which has cables between towers (so called “suspension
cables”) and from them vertical “suspender cables” (or hangers”) that hold the deck. Suspension
cables are anchored at each end of the bridge and they carry the majority of the load.
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Suspension bridges, as we know them todayCHED CEBwhich
and of Res. 076-2009
the first modern examples were built in the
early 19th century, actually evolved from the “simple suspension bridges”. These bridges are one of
the oldest types made by man. They have load-bearing cables but don’t have towers.
Earliest versions of suspension bridges were built by Thangtong Gyalpo, Tibetan saint and bridge-
builder (among other things) from the 15th century. He built over 58 iron chain suspension bridges
around Tibet and Bhutan and one of his bridges survived until 2004 when it was destroyed by a flood.
Most of his bridges had chains as suspension cables while his early bridges used ropes from twisted
willows or yak skins.
The first design of a suspension bridge that is similar to today's modern designs appeared in book
“Machinae Novae” from 1959 which was written by Venetian polymath Fausto Veranzio. He also has
designs in his book for a timber and rope suspension bridge, and a hybrid suspension and cable-
stayed bridge using iron chains.
 Cable-stayed bridges – Bridge that uses deck cables that are directly connected to one or
more vertical columns. Cables are usually connected to columns in two ways – harp design
(each cable is attached to the different point of the column, creating harp like design of
“strings” and fan design (all cables connect to one point at the top of the column).
Cable-stayed Bridge - History, Facts and Types
Cable-stayed bridge is a bridge similar to suspended bridge in that it has towers and a deck that is
held by cables, but its cables hold the deck by connecting it directly to the towers instead via
suspender cables. It usually carries pedestrians, bicycles, automobiles, trucks, and light rail. It is used
in places where spans need to be longer than cantilever bridge can achieve (because of its weight), but
the span is short enough so a suspension bridge is not practical there economically.
Venetian inventor Fausto Veranzio was the first to design cable stayed bridges (he was also the first
to design modern suspended bridge). He published his works in 1595 in his book “Machinae Novae”.
First built cable-stayed bridges appeared in the 19th century and many early suspension bridges were
cable-stayed like footbridge Dryburgh Abbey Bridge, James Dredge's Victoria Bridge, in Bath,
England (Built in 1836), Albert Bridge (built in 1872) and Brooklyn Bridge (1883). Other early
cable-stayed bridges in the United States were Barton Creek Bridge between Huckabay, Texas and
Gordon, Texas (built in 1889), bridge over Bluff Dale, Texas, (built in 1890a and it still largely
stands).
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Fixed or moveable types CHED CEB Res. 076-2009
 Fixed – Majority of bridges are fixed, with no moveable parts to provide higher clearance for
river/sea transport that is flowing below them. They are designed to stay where they are made
to the point they are deemed unusable or demolished.
 Temporary bridges – Bridges made from modular basic components that can be moved by
medium or light machinery. They are usually used in military engineering or in circumstances
when fixed bridges are repaired.
 Moveable bridges – They have moveable decks, most often powered by electricity.
Types by use
 Car Traffic – The most common type of bridge, with two or more lanes designed to carry car
and truck traffic of various intensities.
 Pedestrian bridges – Usually made in urban environments, or in terrain where car transport is
inaccessible (rough mountainous terrain, forests, etc.).
 Double-decked bridges – Built to provide best possible flow of traffic across bodies of water
or rough terrain. Most offen they have large amount of car lanes, and sometimes have
dedicated area for train tracks.
 Train bridges – Bridges made specifically to carry one or multiple lane of train tracks.
 Pipelines – Bridges made to carry pipelines across water or inaccessible terrains. Pipelines
can carry water, air, gas and communication cables.
 Viaducts – Ancient structures created to carry water from water rich areas to dry cities.
 Commercial bridges – Modern bridges that host commercial buildings such as restaurants
and shops.
Types by materials
 Natural materials
 Wood (Wooden bridges)
 Stone
 Concrete and Steel
 Advanced materials

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E

ducation. Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

xcellence. Granted Autonomous Status

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