Getting ready to design your own! Suspension Bridges Getting ready to design your own!

What is a suspension bridge: One of the several types of bridge designs Used for the longest spans Cables- suspend the roadway Towers- stabilize wire cables (offer little support) Anchorages- key to the structure, mass that keeps cables tight, gives the bridge structure

Suspension Bridge

With anchorages Without anchorages

Roebling’s Engineering Contributions: Engineer famous for American suspension bridges Use of steel Development of wire cables Spinning: assembling heavy cables in the air Advancement of stiffening trusses Truss: triangular structure that adds strength not weight

Roebling’s First Bridge: Niagara Falls in 1855 to 1897 825 feet Suspension railway

Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge: Longest of it’s time 1595 feet in 1883

Other Famous Suspension Bridges

Akashi Kaikyo Bridge Hyogo, Japan 6,529 ft Longest suspension bridge today

Top 10 bridges in the world by length: Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge (Japan), 1991 m — 1998 Xihoumen Bridge (China), 1650 m — 2007 Great Belt Bridge (Denmark), 1624 m — 1998 Runyang Bridge (China), 1490 m — 2005 Humber Bridge (England, United Kingdom), 1410 m — 1981. (The longest span from 1981 until 1998.) Jiangyin Suspension Bridge (China), 1385 m — 1997 Tsing Ma Bridge (Hong Kong, China), 1377 m — 1997 (longest span with both road and metro) Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (USA), 1298 m — 1964. (The longest span from 1964 until 1981.) Golden Gate Bridge (USA), 1280 m — 1937. (The longest span from 1937 until 1964.) Yangluo Bridge (China), 1280 m — 2007

Brooklyn Bridge ( NY,USA, 1883), The first steel-wire suspension bridge. Bear Mountain Bridge (NY, USA, 1924), The longest span (497 m)from 1924 to 1926. The first suspension bridge to have a concrete deck. The construction methods pioneered in building it would make possible several much larger projects to follow. John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge (Ohio, USA: 1866), Then the longest wire suspension bridge in the world at 1,057 feet (322 m) main span. Mackinac Bridge (USA, 1957), The longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western hemisphere. Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct (NY,USA, 1847) The oldest wire suspension bridge still in service in United States. Royal Gorge Bridge (Colorado, USA, 1929), The highest (384 m) suspension bridge in the world. San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge (USA, 1936), Until recently, this was the longest steel high-level bridge in the world. The oldest in the world still in use today.

Mackinac Island Bridge Bridges close to home! Mackinac Island Bridge

The longest between anchorages in the Western hemishere

Total length: 26,372 feet (8,038 m) Width: 68.6 feet (20.9 m) Height: 522 feet (159 m) Longest span: 3,800 feet (1,158 m)

Even closer to home… Ambassador Bridge Detroit

Ambassador Bridge Dimensions: Total length7,500 feet (2,286 m) Longest span1,850 feet (564 m)

A B C Total length ______________________ (A) Span length (tower to tower) _____________________(B) Total height of each tower _________________________(C) Total width of the roadway __________________________

Total scale length: Scale span length: Total scale height: The General Contractor wants to see a scale model of this bridge before you begin construction. You will have limited workspace. You will need to scale the feet down to a workable unit. In this case you will use 1 inch to equal 50ft. Total scale length: Scale span length: Total scale height: Total scale roadway width: