Frankford American Bridge

The key elements in transportation system are a bridge that manages capacity, highest cost per mile and system failures. Bridges come in all shapes and sizes. A bridge can be a stone arch, wooden, metal truss, suspension, metal arch, reinforced concrete, or a girder bridge. It can be 50 feet long or 2000 feet long, depending on the type of bridge. Each type of bridge has its own history and contributions to the development of the bridges in the United States. Specifications and bridge failures also contributed to the development of bridges in the US.

One of the oldest stone arch bridge constructed in 1697, that still exists in use in the United States is the Frankford Avenue Bridge. During this time period, the construction of the stone arch

This bridge was made up of top and bottom chords, end posts, and lattice formwork in the center. One of the advantages of building this type of bridge was that the members of the lattice formwork were easy to pre-make since they were all the same size. Another advantage was that the lattice truss bridge is stiff enough to handle deflection by itself without the aid of an arch. This advantage, contributed to the design of the paneled bridge truss by Colonel Stephen H. Long, an army engineer. A paneled bridge truss was a simplified version of the lattice truss bridge. It has top and bottom chords that are divided into panels with diagonal members supporting them. With the paneled bridge truss in wooden bridges, long-span trusses can be built with other

One of those metal arch bridges contributed was the steel deck arch bridge designed by James Eads. This bridge crosses the Mississippi River at St. Louis and was completed in 1874. This bridge is a very significant part of bridge history because of the use of caissons for foundations. Caissons are underwater work chambers. The reason why caissons were used for this bridge is because its foundations had to sit on bedrock, which was very far down. After the caissons were used to build the foundation for the east and west bridge piers, thirteen workers became sick and died from caisson’s disease. This was a serious problem and Eads and his physician was worried about this because the east abutment still had to be built and it had to go deeper than any of the piers. The west abutment was already built with the assistance of a cofferdam, so the foundation for the east abutment was the last thing that had to be built. Eads’ physician suggested shorter working times as the workers get deeper with the caissons. After the east abutment was finished, only one worker