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This example is intended to be readily calculated by hand although a lot of
structural spreadsheets and software such as Prokon are available. The purpose of this
article is for the reader to fully understand the principle behind it.
Worked Example:
Figure
A.1-Retaining Wall Cross Section
Consider the cantilever retaining wall with the cross-section shown in the above Figure A.1,
which retains a 2m depth of soil having the groundwater table at -1.0m level.
Design Parameters:
Soil Bearing Capacity, qall : 100 kPa
Coefficient of Soil Friction, ф: 30°
Unit Weight of Soil, ɣs: 18 kN/m3
Unit Weight of Water, ɣw: 10 kN/m3
Unit Weight of Concrete, ɣc: 25 kN/m3
Surcharge, ω: 12 kN/m2
Ground Water Level: -1m from 0.00 level
Height of Surcharge, h: 0.8m
Height of Wall: 2.0m
f’c: 32 Mpa
fy: 460 Mpa
concrete cover: 75mm
1. Analytical Geometry and Variables
Before we proceed with the design, it is important for the designer to know the geometric
variable and parameters of the retaining wall. Refer to Figure A.2 below.
Figure A.2-Retaining Wall Geometric Variables
where:
Considering the Figure A.3, we can derive the following equation for the active pressures,
Pa and passive pressure Pp. Notice that the pressures acting on the wall are equivalent to
the area (triangle) of the pressure distribution diagram. Hence,
Kp= (1+sin ф)/(1-sin ф)
Kp= 3
o Pa1=1/2 ɣkaH2 = 11.88kN
o Pa2=1/2 ɣHw2= 5kN
o Pa3=ωkah= 3.17 kN
o Pp=1/2 ɣkpHp2= 9.72kN
3. Stability Check:
There are two checks to consider the stability of the retaining wall. One is the check for an
overturning moment and the other one is the check for sliding. The weight of the retaining
wall including the gravity loads within it plays a vital role in performing the stability check.
Refer to Figure A.4 for the mass or weight calculations.
o Weight due to soil: W1= 18kN/m3 x 0.6m x 0.625m x 1.0m = 6.75kN
o Weight due to footing: W2= 0.9 x 25kN/m3 x 0.25m x 1.5m x 1.0m = 8.44kN
o Weight due to wall: W3= 0.9 x 25kN/m3 x 0.25m x 2.0m x 1.0m = 11.25kN
o Weight due to soil: W4= 18kN/m3 x 0.625m x 2.0m x 1.0m = 22.5kN
o Weight due to water: W5= 10kN/m3 x 0.625m x 1.0m x 1.0m = 6.25kN
o Weight due to surcharge: Ws= 12kN/m2 x 0.625m x 1.0m = 7.5kN
o Total Weight, WT = 62.69kN
3.1 Check for Overturning Moment:
To satisfy the Overturning Moment Stability, the following equation should follow:
where:
o RM: Righting Moment due to the weight of the retaining wall
o OM: Overturning Moment due to lateral earth pressure
With reference to Figure A.4 diagram and taking moment at the point, P conservatively
neglecting the effect of passive pressure hence:
o RF: Resisting Force
o SF: Sliding Force
The sliding check should be carried out with reference to the Figure A.4 diagram and
considering the summation of vertical forces for resisting force and horizontal forces for
sliding force conservatively neglecting the passive pressure, hence:
Vc = 0.17√fc’bwd
where: ф=0.75
bw=1000mm
d= 250mm-75mm-6mm = 169mm
Vc = 0.17√fc’bwd = 162.52kN
Vallow= 121.89kN
Since Vu < Vallow, hence SAFE in Shear!
5. Design the Wall Stem for Flexure
Nominal Moment, Mn = 10.88kNm
Ultimate Moment, Mu = 1.6Mn = 17.40kNm
Mu =φ fc’ bd2ω (1- 0.59 ω)
17.40×106 = 0.90 x 32 x 1000 x 1692 ω (1-0.59 ω)
ω = 0.0216
ρ = ω fc’/fy= 0.00150
For the footing to be safe in soil pressure, the maximum soil pressure under working load
shall be less than the allowable soil bearing capacity. The maximum soil bearing pressure
under the footing considering 1m strip is:
where:
o P= 62.69kN
o A= (1×1.5) m2
o M=10.88 kNm
o b= 1m
o d=1.5m
Substituting the values above will give us:
where:
o P= 1.6x 6.75 + 1.4×8.44 +1.4×11.25 +1.6x 22.5 +1.6×6.25 +1.6×7.5= 96.37kN
o A= (1×1.5) m2
o M=17.40kNm
o b= 1m
o d=1.5m
Substituting the values above will give us:
qumax= 110.65kN
qumin= 17.85kN
7. Check the Required Length of the Base
If qumin is in tension check the required length otherwise ignore if it is in compression. Since
our qumin is tension (+), the value of L must be computed as follows:
e=M/P = 0.181
where:
o a=length of pressure
o qe= qumax
o b=1 meter strip
o a= 1.74m
L= 2(e+a/3) = 1.52 say 1.6m
8. Check the Adequacy of Footing Thickness for Wide Beam Shear
Fig A.6-Pressure Diagram under Compression
qc=79.79kPa
Vu= 1/2 (qc + qumax) L’b
L’= (1.6m-1.244m) = 0.356m
B= 1m strip
qumax=112.24 kPa
Vu=34.18kN
Hence, use: Vu=44.75kN
Vallow= фVc
Vc = 0.17√fc’bwd
where:
o ф=0.75
o bw=1000mm
o d= 250mm-75mm-6mm = 169mm
Vc = 0.17√fc’bwd = 162.52kN
Vallow= 121.89kN
Since Vu < Vallow, hence SAFE in Shear!
9. Check the Wall Thickness for Flexure
ρ = ω fc/fy= 0.002532
The presented calculations above are actually too tiring to perform manually especially if
you are doing a trial and error design. Thanks to structural design soft
wares and spreadsheets, available nowadays, our design life will be easier.
Our team developed a user-friendly spreadsheet for the design of cantilever retaining
wall based on the above calculation. Grab your copy here!
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bridge, structure that spans horizontally between supports, whose function is to carry
vertical loads. The prototypical bridge is quite simple—two supports holding up a beam
—yet the engineering problems that must be overcome even in this simple form
are inherent in every bridge: the supports must be strong enough to hold the structure
up, and the span between supports must be strong enough to carry the loads. Spans are
generally made as short as possible; long spans are justified where good foundations are
limited—for example, over estuaries with deep water.
All major bridges are built with the public’s money. Therefore, bridge design that best
serves the public interest has a threefold goal: to be as efficient, as economical, and as
elegant as is safely possible. Efficiency is a scientific principle that puts a value on
reducing materials while increasing performance. Economy is a social principle that
puts value on reducing the costs of construction and maintenance while retaining
efficiency. Finally, elegance is a symbolic or visual principle that puts value on the
personal expression of the designer without compromising performance or economy.
There is little disagreement over what constitutes efficiency and economy, but the
definition of elegance has always been controversial.
Generally speaking, bridges can be divided into two categories: standard overpass
bridges or unique-design bridges over rivers, chasms, or estuaries. This article describes
features common to both types, but it concentrates on the unique bridges because of
their greater technical, economic, and aesthetic interest.
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bridge forms
There are six basic bridge forms: the beam, the truss, the arch, the suspension,
the cantilever, and the cable-stay.
Beam
beam bridge
The beam bridge is the most common bridge form. A beam carries vertical loads by
bending. As the beam bridge bends, it undergoes horizontal compression on the top. At
the same time, the bottom of the beam is subjected to horizontal tension. The supports
carry the loads from the beam by compression vertically to the foundations.
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When a bridge is made up of beams spanning between only two supports, it is called
a simply supported beam bridge. If two or more beams are joined rigidly together over
supports, the bridge becomes continuous.
Truss
arch bridge
The arch bridge carries loads primarily by compression, which exerts on the foundation
both vertical and horizontal forces. Arch foundations must therefore prevent both
vertical settling and horizontal sliding. In spite of the more complicated foundation
design, the structure itself normally requires less material than a beam bridge of the
same span.
Suspension
suspension bridge
A suspension bridge carries vertical loads through curved cables in tension. These loads
are transferred both to the towers, which carry them by vertical compression to the
ground, and to the anchorages, which must resist the inward and sometimes vertical
pull of the cables. The suspension bridge can be viewed as an upside-down arch in
tension with only the towers in compression. Because the deck is hung in the air, care
must be taken to ensure that it does not move excessively under loading. The deck
therefore must be either heavy or stiff or both.
Cantilever
cantilever bridge
A beam is said to be cantilevered when it projects outward, supported only at one end.
A cantilever bridge is generally made with three spans, of which the outer spans are both
anchored down at the shore and cantilever out over the channel to be crossed. The
central span rests on the cantilevered arms extending from the outer spans; it carries
vertical loads like a simply supported beam or a truss—that is, by tension forces in the
lower chords and compression in the upper chords. The cantilevers carry their loads by
tension in the upper chords and compression in the lower ones. Inner towers carry those
forces by compression to the foundation, and outer towers carry the forces by tension to
the far foundations.
Cable-stay
Stone is strong in compression but weak in tension. Its primary application has been
in arches, piers, and abutments.
Iron and steel
The first iron used during the Industrial Revolution was cast iron, which is strong in
compression but weak in tension. Wrought iron, on the other hand, is as strong in
compression as cast iron, but it also has much greater tensile strength. Steel is an even
further refinement of iron and is yet stronger, superior to any iron in both tension and
compression. Steel can be made to varying strengths, some alloys being five times
stronger than others. The engineer refers to these as high-strength steels.
Concrete
Concrete is an artificial stone made from a mixture of water, sand, gravel, and a binder
such as cement. Like stone, it is strong in compression and weak in tension. Concrete
with steel bars embedded in it is called reinforced concrete. Reinforcement allows for
less concrete to be used because the steel carries all the tension; also, the concrete
protects the steel from corrosion and fire.
For longer spans, steel beams are made in the form of plate girders. A plate girder is an I
beam consisting of separate top and bottom flanges welded or bolted to a vertical web.
While beams for short spans are usually of a constant depth, beams for longer spans are
often haunched—that is, deeper at the supports and shallower at mid-span. Haunching
stiffens the beam at the supports, thereby reducing bending at mid-span.
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Arch bridges
Arches are normally fabricated on-site. After the building of abutments (and piers, if the
bridge is multiarch), a falsework is constructed. For a concrete arch, metal or wooden
falsework and forms hold the cast concrete and are later removed. For steel arches, a
cantilevering method is standard. Each side of an arch is built out toward the other,
supported by temporary cables above or by falsework below until the ends meet. At this
point the arch becomes self-supporting, and the cables or falsework are removed.
Suspension bridges
Cantilever bridges
In order to carry traffic, the structure must have some weight, and on short spans this
dead load weight is usually less than the live loads. On longer spans, however, the dead
load is greater than live loads, and, as spans get longer, it becomes more important to
design forms that minimize dead load. In general, shorter spans are built with beams,
hollow boxes, trusses, arches, and continuous versions of the same, while longer spans
use cantilever, cable-stay, and suspension forms. As spans get longer, questions of
shape, materials, and form become increasingly important. New forms have evolved to
provide longer spans with more strength from less material.
Forces of nature
expansion joint
Dead and live weight are essentially vertical loads, whereas forces from nature may be
either vertical or horizontal. Wind causes two important loads, one called static and the
other dynamic. Static wind load is the horizontal pressure that tries to push a bridge
sideways. Dynamic wind load gives rise to vertical motion, creating oscillations in any
direction. Like the breaking of an overused violin string, oscillations are vibrations that
can cause a bridge to fail. If a deck is thin and not properly shaped and supported, it
may experience dangerous vertical or torsional (twisting) movements.
The expansion and contraction of bridge materials by heat and cold have been
minimized by the use of expansion joints in the deck along with bearings at the
abutments and at the tops of piers. Bearings allow the bridge to react to varying
temperatures without causing detrimental stress to the material. In arches, engineers
sometimes design hinges to reduce stresses caused by temperature movement.
Some of the earliest known bridges are called clapper bridges (from Latin claperius,
“pile of stones”). These bridges were built with long, thin slabs of stone to make a beam-
type deck and with large rocks or blocklike piles of stones for piers. Postbridge in Devon,
England, an early medieval clapper bridge, is an oft-visited example of this old type,
which was common in much of the world, especially China.
Roman arch bridges
The Romans began organized bridge building to help their military campaigns.
Engineers and skilled workmen formed guilds that were dispatched throughout the
empire, and these guilds spread and exchanged building ideas and principles. The
Romans also discovered a natural cement, called pozzolana, which they used for piers in
rivers.
parts of a circular arch
Sant'Angelo Bridge
Roman bridges are famous for using the circular arch form, which allowed for spans
much longer than stone beams and for bridges of more permanence than wood. Where
several arches were necessary for longer bridges, the building of strong piers was
critical. This was a problem when the piers could not be built on rock, as in a wide river
with a soft bed. To solve this dilemma, the Romans developed the cofferdam, a
temporary enclosure made from wooden piles driven into the riverbed to make a sheath,
which was often sealed with clay. Concrete was then poured into the water within the
ring of piles. Although most surviving Roman bridges were built on rock,
the Sant’Angelo Bridge in Rome stands on cofferdam foundations built in the Tiber
River more than 1,800 years ago.
Roman masonry arch bridge
The Romans built many wooden bridges, but none has survived, and their reputation
rests on their masonry bridges. One beautiful example is the bridge over the Tagus
River at Alcántara, Spain. The arches, each spanning 29 metres (98 feet), feature huge
arch stones (voussoirs) weighing up to eight tons each. Typical of the best stone bridges,
the voussoirs at Alcántara were so accurately shaped that no mortar was needed in the
joints. This bridge has remained standing for nearly 2,000 years.
Pont du Gard
Another surviving monument is the Pont du Gard aqueduct near Nîmes in
southern France, completed in 14 CE. This structure, almost 270 metres (900 feet) long,
has three tiers of semicircular arches, with the top tier rising more than 45 metres (150
feet) above the river. The bottom piers form diamond-shaped points, called cutwaters,
which offer less resistance to the flow of water.
Asian cantilever and arch bridges
Wooden cantilever bridges were popular in Asia. The basic design used piles driven into
the riverbed and old boats filled with stones sunk between them to make cofferdam-like
foundations. When the highest of the stone-filled boats reached above the low-water
level, layers of logs were crisscrossed in such a way that, as they rose in height, they
jutted farther out toward the adjacent piers. At the top the Y-shaped cantilevering piers
were joined by long tree trunks. By crisscrossing the logs, the builders allowed water to
pass through the piers, offering less resistance to floods than with a solid design. In this
respect, these designs presaged some of the advantages of the early iron bridges.
In parts of China many bridges had to stand in the spongy silt of river valleys. As these
bridges were subject to an unpredictable assortment of tension and compression, the
Chinese created a flexible masonry-arch bridge. Using thin, curved slabs of stone, the
bridges yielded to considerable deformation before failure.
The Middle Ages
Saint-Bénézet Bridge
A more elegant bridge of the period was the Saint-Bénézet Bridge at Avignon, France.
Begun in 1177, part of it still stands today.
Monnow Bridge
Another medieval bridge of note is Monnow Bridge in Wales, which featured three
separate ribs of stone under the arches. Rib construction reduced the quantity of
material needed for the rest of the arch and lightened the load on the foundations.
The Renaissance and after
Stone arch bridges
During the Renaissance the Italian architect Andrea Palladio took the principle of
the truss, which previously had been used for roof supports, and designed several
successful wooden bridges with spans up to 30 metres (100 feet). Longer bridges,
however, were still made of stone.
Rialto Bridge
Yet another Italian, Antonio da Ponte, designed the Rialto Bridge (1591) in Venice, an
ornate arch made of two segments with a span of 27 metres (89 feet) and a rise of 6
metres (21 feet). Antonio overcame the problem of soft, wet soil by having 6,000 timber
piles driven straight down under each of the two abutments, upon which the masonry
was placed in such a way that the bed joints of the stones were perpendicular to the line
of thrust of the arch. This innovation of angling stone or concrete to the line of thrust
has been continued into the present.
Pont de la Concorde
By the middle of the 18th century, bridge building in masonry reached its zenith. Jean-
Rodolphe Perronet, builder of some of the finest bridges of his day, developed very flat
arches supported on slender piers. His works included the Pont de Neuilly (1774), over
the Seine, the Pont Sainte-Maxence (1785), over the Oise, and the beautiful Pont de la
Concorde (1791), also over the Seine. In Great Britain, William Edwards built what
many people consider the most beautiful arch bridge in the British Isles—
the Pontypridd Bridge (1750), over the Taff in Wales, with a lofty span of 42 metres (140
feet). In London the young Swiss engineer Charles Labelye, entrusted with the building
of the first bridge at Westminster, evolved a novel and ingenious method of sinking the
foundations, employing huge timber caissons that were filled with masonry after they
had been floated into position for each pier. The 12 semicircular arches of portland
stone, rising in a graceful camber over the river, set a high standard of engineering and
architectural achievement for the next generation and stood for a hundred years.
Timber truss bridges
In the 18th century, designs with timber, especially trusses, reached new span lengths.
In 1755 a Swiss builder, Hans Grubenmann, used trusses to support a covered timber
bridge with spans of 51 and 58 metres (171 and 193 feet) over the Rhine at Schaffhausen.
Many timber truss bridges were built in the United States. One of the best long-span
truss designs was developed by Theodore Burr, of Torrington, Connecticut, and based
on a drawing by Palladio; a truss strengthened by an arch, it set a new pattern for
covered bridges in the United States. Burr’s McCall’s Ferry Bridge (1815; on
the Susquehanna River near Lancaster, Pennsylvania) had a record-breaking span of
108 metres (360 feet). Another successful design was the “lattice
truss,” patented by Ithiel Town in 1820, in which top and bottom chords were made of
horizontal timbers connected by a network of diagonal planks.
Early trusses were built without precise knowledge of how the loads are carried by each
part of the truss. The first engineer to analyze correctly the stresses in a truss was Squire
Whipple, an American who designed hundreds of small truss bridges and published his
theories in 1869. Understanding precisely how loads were carried led to a reduction in
materials, which by then were shifting from wood and stone to iron and steel.
Hubert Shirley-SmithDavid P. BillingtonPhilip N. Billington
Iron and steel bridges, 1779–1929
Iron
Early designs
During the Industrial Revolution the timber and masonry tradition was eclipsed by the
use of iron, which was stronger than stone and usually less costly. The first bridge built
solely of iron spanned the River Severn near Coalbrookdale, England. Designed
by Thomas Pritchard and built in 1779 by Abraham Darby, the Ironbridge, constructed
of cast-iron pieces, is a ribbed arch whose nearly semicircular 30-metre (100-foot) span
imitates stone construction by exploiting the strength of cast iron in compression. In
1795 the Severn region was wracked by disastrous floods, and the Ironbridge, lacking
the wide flat surfaces of stone structures, allowed the floodwaters to pass through it. It
was the only bridge in the region to survive—a fact noted by the Scottish
engineer Thomas Telford, who then began to create a series of iron bridges that were
judged to be technically the best of their time. The 1814 Craigellachie Bridge, over
the River Spey in Scotland, is the oldest surviving metal bridge of Telford’s. Its 45-metre
(150-foot) arch has a flat, nearly parabolic profile made up of two curved arches
connected by X-bracing. The roadway has a slight vertical curve and is supported by thin
diagonal members that carry loads to the arch.
Menai Bridge
The use of relatively economical wrought iron freed up the imaginations of designers,
and one of the first results was Telford’s use of chain suspension cables to carry loads by
tension. His eyebar cables consisted of wrought-iron bars of 6 to 9 metres (20 to 30) feet
with holes at each end. Each eye matched the eye on another bar, and the two were
linked by iron pins. The first of these major chain-suspension bridges and the finest of
its day was Telford’s Menai Bridge, over the Menai Strait in northwestern Wales. At the
time of its completion in 1826, its 174-metre (580-foot) span was the world’s longest. In
1893 its timber deck was replaced with a steel deck, and in 1940 steel chains replaced
the corroded wrought-iron ones. The bridge is still in service today.
Railway bridges
Among the most important railway bridges of the latter 19th century were those
of Gustave Eiffel. Between 1867 and 1869 Eiffel constructed four viaducts of trussed-
girder design along the rail line between Gannat and Commentry, west
of Vichy in France. The most striking of these, at Rouzat, features wrought-iron towers
that for the first time visibly reflect the need for lateral stiffness to counter the influence
of horizontal wind loads. Lateral stiffness is achieved by curving the towers out at the
base where they meet the masonry foundations, a design style that culminated in Eiffel’s
famous Parisian tower of 1889.
Garabit Viaduct
Eiffel also designed two major arch bridges that were the longest-spanning structures of
their type at the time. The first, the 1877 Maria Pia Bridge over the Duoro River
near Porto, Portugal, is a 157-metre (522-foot) crescent-shaped span that rises 42
metres (140 feet) at its crown. Again, a wide spreading of the arches at their base gives
this structure greater lateral stiffness. The crowning achievement of the crescent-arch
form in the 19th century was represented by the completion in 1884 of Eiffel’s 162-metre
(541-foot) Garabit Viaduct over the Truyère River near Saint-Flour, France. Unlike the
bridge at Duoro, the Garabit arch is separated visually from the thin horizontal girder.
Both arches were designed with hinges at their supports so that the crescent shape
widens from points at the supports to a deep but light truss at the crown. The hinged
design served to facilitate construction and also to produce the powerful visual image
intended by Eiffel.
Suspension bridges
In the United States, engineer John Roebling established a factory in 1841 for making
rope out of iron wire, which he initially sold to replace the hempen rope used for
hoisting cars over the portage railway in central Pennsylvania. Later Roebling used wire
ropes as suspension cables for bridges, and he developed the technique for spinning the
cables in place rather than making a prefabricated cable that needed to be lifted into
place. In 1855 Roebling completed a 246-metre- (821-foot-) span railway bridge over
the Niagara River in western New York state. Wind loads were not yet understood in any
theoretical sense, but Roebling recognized the practical need to prevent vertical
oscillations. He therefore added numerous wire stays, which extended like a giant
spiderweb in various directions from the deck to the valley below and to the towers
above. The Niagara Bridge confounded nearly all the engineering judgment of the day,
which held that suspension bridges could not sustain railway traffic. Although the trains
were required to slow down to a speed of only five kilometres (three miles) per hour and
repairs were frequent, the bridge was in service for 42 years, and it was replaced only
because newer trains had become too heavy for it.
Roebling’s Cincinnati Bridge (now called the John A. Roebling Bridge) over the Ohio
River was a prototype for his masterful Brooklyn Bridge (see below Steel: Suspension
bridges). When this 317-metre- (1,057-foot-) span iron-wire cable suspension bridge was
completed in 1866, it was the longest spanning bridge in the world. Roebling’s mature
style showed itself in the structure’s impressive stone towers and its thin suspended
span, with stays radiating from the tower tops to control deck oscillations from wind
loads.
Steel
Railway bridges
Between the American Civil War and World War I, railroads reached their peak in the
United States and elsewhere, increasing the need for bridges that could withstand these
heavier loads. New processes for making steel gave rise to many important bridges, such
as the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, the Forth Bridge over the
Firth of Forth in Scotland, the Hell Gate Bridge and Bayonne Bridge in New York City,
and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.
The 1874 Eads Bridge was the first major bridge built entirely of steel, excluding the pier
foundations. Designed by James Buchanan Eads, it has three arch spans, of which the
two sides are each 151 metres (502 feet) and the middle is 156 metres (520 feet). The
Eads bridge was given added strength by its firm foundations, for which
pneumatic caissons, instead of cofferdams, were used for the first time in the United
States. Another innovation carried out by Eads, based on a proposal by Telford, was the
construction of arches by the cantilevering method. The arches were held up by cables
supported by temporary towers above the piers, all of which were removed when the
arches became self-supporting.
Forth Bridge
The Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth in Scotland, designed by Benjamin Baker, has
two cantilevered spans of 513 metres (1,710 feet), which made it the world’s longest
bridge upon its completion in 1890. The steel structure rises 103 metres (342 feet) above
the masonry piers. Although from an approaching standpoint it appears dense and
massive, in profile it exhibits a surprising lightness. Baker designed the bridge with an
artist’s temperament. In his writings he criticized the Britannia Bridge for its towers,
which Stephenson admitted had been left in place only in case the bridge needed
suspension chains and not out of structural necessity. The Forth Bridge, on the other
hand, is pure structure; nothing has been added for aesthetic appearance that does not
have a structural function. For more than a century the bridge has carried a railway, and
indeed it was one of the last great bridges built for that purpose in the 19th century.
The Hell Gate Bridge, completed by Gustav Lindenthal in 1916, also had an aesthetic
intention. It was made to look massive by its stone towers and by the increased spacing
of the two chords at the support, yet structurally the towers serve no purpose; the lower
chord of the arch is actually hinged at the abutments, and all of the load is carried to
the foundations by that lower chord. Nevertheless, the bridge has an imposing presence,
and its arch of 293 metres (978 feet) was the world’s longest at the time.
Similar in arch form to Hell Gate is the 1931 Bayonne Bridge, designed by Lindenthal’s
former associate, Othmar Ammann. Spanning the Kill van Kull between Staten Island,
New York, and Bayonne, New Jersey, the Bayonne Bridge, though longer than the Hell
Gate Bridge at 496 metres (1,652 feet), is significantly lighter. The main span for the
Hell Gate required 39 million kg (87 million pounds) of steel, compared with 17 million
kg (37 million pounds) for the Bayonne. Part of the reason is the lower live loads; for the
Hell Gate, train loading was taken at 36,000 kg per metre (24,000 pounds per foot) of
bridge length, whereas for the Bayonne the car loading was 10,000 kg per metre (7,000
pounds per foot). But the decrease is also due to an effort to make the arch more
graceful as well as more economical. Massive-looking stone-faced abutments were
designed for the sake of appearance but then were never built, leaving a rather useless
tangle of light steel latticework at the abutments. Nevertheless, from a distance the
Bayonne Bridge shows a lightness and delicacy that bespeaks structural integrity.
Suspension bridges
Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
John Roebling died in 1869, shortly after work began on the Brooklyn Bridge, but the
project was taken over and seen to completion by his son, Washington Roebling.
Technically, the bridge overcame many obstacles through the use of huge pneumatic
caissons, into which compressed air was pumped so that men could work in the dry; but,
more important, it was the first suspension bridge on which steel wire was used for
the cables. Every wire was galvanized to safeguard against rust, and the four cables, each
nearly 40 cm (16 inches) in diameter, took 26 months to spin back and forth over
the East River. After many political and technical difficulties and at least 27 fatal
accidents, the 479-metre- (1,595-foot-) span bridge was completed in 1883 to such
fanfare that within 24 hours an estimated quarter-million people crossed over it, using a
central elevated walkway that John Roebling had designed for the purpose of giving
pedestrians a dramatic view of the city.
The most prolific designers first using reinforced concrete were Hennebique and the
German engineer G.A. Wayss, who bought the Monier patents. Hennebique’s Vienne
River Bridge at Châtellerault, France, built in 1899, was the longest-spanning reinforced
arch bridge of the 19th century. Built low to the river—typical of many reinforced-
concrete bridges whose goal of safe passage across a small river is not affected by heavy
boat traffic—the Châtellerault bridge has three arches, the centre spanning just over 48
metres (160 feet). In 1904 the Isar River Bridge at Grünewald, Germany, designed
by Emil Morsch for Wayss’s firm, became the longest reinforced-concrete span in the
world at 69 metres (230 feet).
The longest-spanning concrete arches of the 1920s were designed by the French
engineer Eugène Freyssinet. In his bridge over the Seine at Saint-Pierre-du-Vauvray
(1922), two thin, hollow arches rise 25 metres (82 feet) at mid-span and are connected
by nine crossbeams. The arches curve over the deck, which is suspended by thin steel
wires lightly coated with mortar and hanging down in a triangular formation. The 131-
metre (435-foot) span, then a record for reinforced concrete, thus has a light
appearance. The bridge was destroyed during World War II but was rebuilt in 1946
using the same form.
Plougastel Bridge
In 1930 Freyssinet completed his most renowned work, the Plougastel Bridge over the
Elorn Estuary near Brest, France. This bridge featured three 176-metre (585-foot)
hollow-box arch spans, then the longest concrete spans in the world. Because of the
great scale of this structure, Freyssinet studied the creep, or movement under stress, of
concrete. This led him to his general idea for prestressing (see below Prestressed
concrete).
Maillart’s innovations
Swiss engineer Robert Maillart’s use of reinforced concrete, beginning in 1901, effected a
revolution in structural art. Maillart, all of whose main bridges are in Switzerland, was
the first 20th-century designer to break completely with the masonry tradition and put
concrete into forms technically appropriate to its properties yet visually surprising. For
his 1901 bridge over the Inn River at Zuoz, he designed a curved arch and a flat roadway
connected by longitudinal walls that turned the complete structure into a hollow-box
girder with a span of 37.5 metres (125 feet) and with hinges at the abutments and the
crown. This was the first concrete hollow-box to be constructed. The arch at Zuoz is
thickened at the bottom, and all of the load to the abutments is carried at these thick
points. The walls near the abutments, therefore, are technically superfluous. For his
1905 bridge over the Vorderrhein at Tavanasa, with a span of 50 metres (167 feet),
Maillart cut out the spandrel walls to achieve a technically superior form that was also
visually new. As at Zuoz, the concrete arches of the Tavanasa bridge were connected by
hinges to both abutments and to each other at the crown, thus allowing the arch to rise
freely without internal stress when the temperature rose and to drop when the
temperature went down. By contrast, Hennebique’s bridge at Châtellerault did not have
hinges, and the arches cracked severely at the abutments and crown. The Tavanasa
bridge was unfortunately destroyed by an avalanche in 1927.
Salginatobel Bridge
Maillart’s Valtschielbach Bridge of 1926, a deck-stiffened arch with a 43-metre (142-
foot) span, demonstrated that the arch can be extremely thin as long as the deck beam is
stiff. The arch at Valtschielbach increases in thickness from a mere 23 cm (9 inches) at
the crown to just over 28 cm (11 inches) at the supports. Thin vertical slabs, or cross-
walls, connect the arch to the deck, allowing the deck to stiffen the arch and thus
permitting the arch to be thin. Such technical insight revealed Maillart’s deep
understanding of how to work with reinforced concrete—an understanding that
culminated in a series of masterpieces beginning with the 1930 Salginatobel Bridge,
which, as with the others already mentioned, is located in the Swiss canton
of Graubünden. The form of the Salginatobel Bridge is similar to the Tavanasa yet
modified to account for a longer central span of 89 metres (295 feet), which is needed to
cross the deep ravine below. Maillart’s hollow-box, three-hinged arch design not only
was the least costly of the 19 designs proposed but also was considered by the district
engineer to be the most elegant. The stone abutments of earlier Maillart bridges were
dispensed with at Salginatobel, as the rocky walls of the ravine that meet the arch
are sufficient to carry the load.
Other notable bridges by Maillart are the bridge over the Thur at Felsegg (1933),
the Schwandbach Bridge near Hinterfultigen (1933), and the Töss River footbridge near
Wulflingen (1934). The Felsegg bridge has a 68-metre (226-foot) span and features for
the first time two parallel arches, both three-hinged. Like the Salginatobel Bridge, the
Felsegg bridge features X-shaped abutment hinges of reinforced concrete (invented by
Freyssinet), which were more economical than steel hinges. The Schwandbach Bridge,
with a span of 37 metres (123 feet), is a deck-stiffened arch with a horizontally curved
roadway. The true character of reinforced concrete is most apparent in this bridge, as
the inner edge of the slab-arch follows the horizontal curve of the highway, while the
outer edge of the arch is straight. Vertical trapezoidal cross-walls integrate the deck with
the arch, and the result is one of the most acclaimed bridges in concrete. The Töss
footbridge is a deck-stiffened arch with a span of 37.5 metres (125 feet). The deck is
curved vertically at the crown and countercurved at the riverbanks, integrating the
structure into the setting.
Maillart’s great contribution to bridge design was that, while he kept within the
traditional discipline of engineering, always striving to use less material and keep costs
down, he continually played with the forms in order to achieve
maximum aesthetic expression. Some of his last bridges—at Vessy, Liesberg, and Lachen
—illustrate his mature vision for the possibilities of structural art. Over the Arve River at
Vessy in 1935, Maillart designed a three-hinged, hollow-box arch in which the thin
cross-walls taper at mid-height, forming an X shape. This striking design, giving life to
the structure, is both a natural form and a playful expression. Also in 1935, a beam
bridge over the Birs River at Liesberg employed haunching of the beams, a tapering
outward at the base of the thin columns, and a curved top edge becoming less deep near
the abutments. For a skewed railway overpass at Lachen in 1940, Maillart used two
separate three-hinged arches that sprang from different levels of the abutment, creating
a dynamic interplay of shapes.
Prestressed concrete
Eugène Freyssinet
The idea of prestressing concrete was first applied by Freyssinet in his effort to save
the Le Veurdre Bridge over the Allier River near Vichy, France. A year after its
completion in 1910, Freyssinet noted the three-arch bridge had been moving downward
at an alarming rate. A flat concrete arch, under its own dead load, generates huge
compressive forces that cause the structure to shorten over time and, hence, move
eventually downward. This “creep” may eventually cause the arch to collapse.
Freyssinet’s solution was to jack apart the arch halves at the crown, lifting the arch and
putting the concrete into additional compression against the abutments and then
casting new concrete into the spaces at the crown. By 1928, experience with the Le
Veurdre Bridge led Freyssinet to propose the more common method of prestressing,
using high-strength steel to put concrete into compression.
The first major bridge made of prestressed concrete in the United States, the Walnut
Lane Bridge (1950) in Philadelphia, was designed by Gustave Magnel and features three
simply supported girder spans with a centre span of 48 metres (160 feet) and two end
spans of 22 metres (74 feet). Although it was plain in appearance, a local art jury
responsible for final approval found that the slim lines of the bridge were elegant
enough not to require a stone facade.
Ulrich Finsterwalder
During the years after World War II, a German engineer and builder, Ulrich
Finsterwalder, developed the cantilever method of construction with prestressed
concrete. Finsterwalder’s Bendorf Bridge over the Rhine at Koblenz, Germany, was
completed in 1962 with thin piers and a centre span of 202 metres (673 feet). The
double cantilevering method saved money through the absence of scaffolding in the
water and also by allowing for reduced girder depth and consequent reduction of
material where the ends of the deck meet in the centre. The resulting girder has the
appearance of a very shallow arch, elegant in profile. Another fine bridge by
Finsterwalder is the Mangfall Bridge (1959) south of Munich, a high bridge with a
central span of 106 metres (354 feet) and two side spans of 89 metres (295 feet). The
Mangfall Bridge features the first latticed truss walls made of prestressed concrete, and
it also has a two-tier deck allowing pedestrians to walk below the roadway and take in a
spectacular view of the valley. Finsterwalder successfully sought to show that
prestressed concrete could compete directly with steel not only in cost but also in
reduction of depth.
Christian Menn
Tacoma Narrows
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
In 1940 the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened over Puget Sound in Washington state,
U.S. Spanning 840 metres (2,800 feet), its deck, also stiffened by plate girders, had a
depth of only 2.4 metres (8 feet). This gave it a ratio of girder depth to span of 1:350,
identical to that of the George Washington Bridge. Unfortunately, at Tacoma Narrows,
just four months after the bridge’s completion, the deck tore apart and collapsed under a
moderate wind.
Witness the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse into Puget Sound between the Olympic Peninsula
and the Washington mainland
See all videos for this article
At that time bridges normally were designed to withstand gales of 190 km (120 miles)
per hour, yet the wind at Tacoma was only 67 km (42 miles) per hour. Motion pictures
taken of the disaster show the deck rolling up and down and twisting wildly. These
two motions, vertical and torsional, occurred because the deck had been provided with
little vertical and almost no torsional stiffness. Engineers had overlooked the wind-
induced failures of bridges in the 19th century and had designed extremely thin decks
without fully understanding their aerodynamic behaviour. After the Tacoma bridge
failed, however, engineers added trusses to the Bronx-Whitestone bridge, cable-stays to
Deer Isle, and further bracing to the stiffening truss at Golden Gate. In turn, the
diagonal stays used to strengthen the Deer Isle Bridge led engineer Norman
Sollenberger to design the San Marcos Bridge (1951) in El Salvador
with inclined suspenders, thus forming a cable truss between cables and deck—the first
of its kind.
Lessons of the disaster
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Mackinac Bridge
The disaster at Tacoma caused engineers to rethink their concepts of the vertical motion
of suspension bridge decks under horizontal wind loads. Part of the problem at Tacoma
was the construction of a plate girder with solid steel plates, 2.4 metres (8 feet) deep on
each side, through which the wind could not pass. For this reason, the new Tacoma
Narrows Bridge (1950), as well as Ammann’s 1,280-metre- (4,260-foot-)
span Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York (1964), were built with open trusses for the
deck in order to allow wind passage. The 1,140-metre- (3,800-foot-) span Mackinac
Bridge in Michigan, U.S., designed by Steinman, also used a deep truss; its two side
spans of 540 metres (1,800 feet) made it the longest continuous suspended structure in
the world at the time of its completion in 1957.
Bosporus Bridge
Humber Bridge
The 972-metre- (3,240-foot-) span Severn Bridge (1966), linking
southern England and Wales over the River Severn, uses a shallow steel box for its deck,
but the deck is shaped aerodynamically in order to allow wind to pass over and under it
—much as a cutwater allows water to deflect around piers with a greatly reduced force.
Another innovation of the Severn Bridge was the use of steel suspenders from cables to
deck that form a series of Vs in profile. When a bridge starts to oscillate in heavy wind, it
tends to move longitudinally as well as up and down, and the inclined suspenders of the
Severn Bridge act to dampen the longitudinal movement. The design ideas used on the
Severn Bridge were repeated on the Bosporus Bridge (1973) at Istanbul and on
the Humber Bridge (1981) over the River Humber in England. The Humber Bridge in its
turn became the longest-spanning bridge in the world, with a main span of 1,388 metres
(4,626 feet).
Truss bridges
Astoria Bridge
Although trusses are used mostly as secondary elements in arch, suspension,
or cantilever designs, several important simply supported truss bridges have achieved
significant length. The Astoria Bridge (1966) over the Columbia River in Oregon, U.S., is
a continuous three-span steel truss with a centre span of 370 metres (1,232 feet), and
the Tenmon Bridge (1966) at Kumamoto, Japan, has a centre span of 295 metres (984
feet).
U.S. designs
Cable-stayed bridges in the United States reflected trends in both cable arrangement
and deck material. The Pasco-Kennewick Bridge (1978) over the Columbia River in
Washington state supported its centre span of 294 metres (981 feet) from two double
concrete towers, the cables fanning down to the concrete deck on either side of the
roadway. Designed by Arvid Grant in collaboration with the German firm of Leonhardt
and Andra, its cost was not significantly different from those of other proposals with
more conventional designs. The same designers produced the East End Bridge across
the Ohio River between Proctorville, Ohio, and Huntington, West Virginia, in 1985.
The East End has a major span of 270 metres (900 feet) and a minor span of 182 metres
(608 feet). The single concrete tower is shaped like a long triangle in
the traverse direction, and the cable arrangement is of the fan type, but, while the Pasco-
Kennewick Bridge has two parallel sets of cables, the East End has but one set, fanning
out from a single plane at the tower into two planes at the composite steel and concrete
deck, so that, as one moves from pure profile to a longitudinal view, the cables do not
align visually.
The first part of the project, completed in 1988, is a route connecting the city of Kojima,
on the main island of Honshu, to Sakaide, on the island of Shikoku. The Kojima-Sakaide
route has three major bridge elements, often referred to collectively as the Seto Great
Bridge (Seto Ōhashi): the Shimotsui suspension bridge, with a suspended main span of
940 metres (3,100 feet) and two unsuspended side spans of 230 metres (760 feet); the
twin 420-metre- (1,380-foot-) span cable-stayed Hitsuishijima and Iwakurojima
bridges; and the two nearly identical Bisan-Seto suspension bridges, with main spans of
990 metres (3,250 feet) and 1,100 metres (3,610 feet). The striking towers of the cable-
stayed Hitsuishijima and Iwakurojima bridges were designed to evoke symbolic images
from Japanese culture, such as the ancient Japanese helmet. The side spans of the two
Seto bridges, being fully suspended, give a visual unity to these bridges that is missing
from the Shimotsui bridge, where the side spans are supported from below. The double
deck of the entire bridge system is a strong 13-metre- (43-foot-) deep continuous truss
that carries cars and trucks on the top deck and trains on the lower deck.
Akashi Kaikyō Bridge
The Kojima-Sakaide route forms the middle of the three Honshu-Shikoku links. The
eastern route, between Kōbe (Honshu) and Naruto (Shikoku), has only two bridges: the
1985 Ōnaruto suspension bridge and the 1998 Akashi Kaikyō (Akashi Strait) suspension
bridge. The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge, crosses the
strait with a main span of 1,991 metres (6,530 feet) and side spans of 960 metres (3,150
feet). Its two 297-metre (975-foot) towers, made of two hollow steel shafts in cruciform
section connected by X-bracing, are the tallest bridge towers in the world. The two
suspension cables are made of a high-strength steel developed by Japanese engineers
for the project. In January 1995 an earthquake that devastated Kōbe had its epicentre
almost directly beneath the nearly completed Akashi Kaikyō structure; the bridge
survived undamaged, though one tower shifted enough to lengthen the main span by
almost one metre.
Tatara Bridge
The western Honshu-Shikoku route links Onomichi (Honshu) with Imabari (Shikoku).
One of the major structures is the Ikuchi cable-stayed bridge, with a main span of 490
metres (1,610 feet). The two towers of the Ikuchi Bridge are delta-shaped, with
two inclined planes of fan-arranged stays. Also on the Onomichi-Imabari route is the
1979 Ōmishima steel arch bridge, whose 297-metre (975-foot) span made it the longest
such structure in the Eastern Hemisphere for almost a quarter century. But the single
most significant structure on the route is the 1999 Tatara cable-stayed bridge, whose
main span of 890 metres (2,920 feet) made it the longest of its type in the world at the
time of its construction. The twin towers of the Tatara Bridge, 220 metres (720 feet)
high, have elegant diamond shapes for the lower 140 metres; the upper 80 metres
consist of two parallel linked shafts that contain the cables.
Taiwan
Completed in 2007, the Chang-hua–Kao-hsiung Viaduct is the world’s second longest
bridge and serves as part of the Taiwan High Speed Rail network. Reaching 157.3 km
(97.8 miles) in length, the bridge runs from Zouying in Kao-hsiung to Baguashan
in Chang-hua county. The bridge and train line were built to
minimize earthquake damage, as the area is prone to seismic activity.
David P. BillingtonPhilip N. Billington
environmental infrastructure
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Jerry A. Nathanson
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