a train was crossing over a railroad bridge spanning the Ashtabula River when the entire bridge collapsed, sending most of the train into the frigid water below. This disaster would be the deadliest bridge disaster in the United States. Investigators quickly tried to determine why this bridge, after eleven years of service, collapsed. The investigators would ultimately place the blame on the president of the Ashtabula Railroad Company, Amasa Stone. The bridge was constructed with many flaws, both
The question of the century is what is a bridge? According to Google’s definition, it is “a structure carrying a road, path, railroad, or canal across a river, ravine, road, railroad, or other obstacle.” Looking further, it provides passage over obstacles such as valleys, rough terrain or bodies of water by spanning those obstacles with manmade materials. Another question is when did bridges erupt? It is said that the first bridges were believed to be made by nature itself. An example would be
Bridges were invented in order to get from place to place even over physical obstacles such as water; the idea of a bridge was in fact inspired by nature. A fallen log, piles of stone and dirt, any of these were the perfect form of a natural bridge and were used before a technical “bridge” was invented. The first bridges made by humans were made of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using simple support systems and cross-beam arrangements. The greatest bridge builders were the ancient
properties of the metals. A corroded piece of iron is not durable, malleable, and will no longer provide functionality. Most metals rust, but the rate at which they corrode is different. Metals like Aluminum seem to resist corrosion, but the metal iron corrodes rapidly. (Nimmo, Bill. PDF) Iron alloys such as steel rust when they come into contact with oxygen and water. Oxygen and water are required for rusting to occur, and when the two are in contact with iron, an oxidation reaction takes place to form
The Warren Truss design is a common design for real and model bridges. It’s exact history and origin is somewhat unclear. James Warren, in 1948, patented a model which many assigned the name Warren Truss. Warren’s patent was more about the technique of building rather than a model. Nevertheless, the Warren Truss has been around for some time and has been very prominent in bridge construction. Examples of this truss design can be found across the globe. A Warren truss has alternating compression and
Iron is an enigma of sorts, from constructing large buildings with it to helping the flow of oxygen through your body. Iron is a metal that provides for both the material and physical aspects in everyday life. The Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Capitol are only a few structures that are constructed with iron. It is widely versatile, and is one of the cheapest and strongest metals that made it indispensable during the Industrial Revolution. Not only that, but it can also be combined
Completed in 1850 Brittania Bridge was the brainchild of Robert Stephenson and at the time was at the cutting edge of civil engineering, with all aspects of construction being on an unprecedented scale. Construction began in 1846 and was completed by 1850, it was intended that the bridge carry the Chester and Holyhead railway across the Menai Strait. Brittania Bridge had to be a tubular bridge to meet the criteria set by the board of admiralty, that the span of the bridge should be at least 100ft above
are recorded to have been working with metals such as copper, bronze, and iron. This Age also includes the Migration Period (the Age of Heroes), because it happened during the time of the Germanic Iron Age when there were great southerly migrations of the Nordic people. The Norse Metallic Ages are: The Nordic Bronze Age 1700 BC –500 BC. The Pre-Roman Iron Age 500 BC – 1 AD. The Roman Iron Age 1 AD - 400 AD. The Germanic Iron Age 400 AD – 800 AD. The Migration Period (“The Heroic Age") 400 - 800 AD
Franz Kafka’s, “The Bridge” is a short, three paragraph story that raises as many questions as it dramatically addresses. With relatively few words, Kafka speaks volumes elicited from the story’s setting, materiality, and the action that takes shape throughout. By examining the relationship between Kafka’s use of the literal and the figurative, namely a man who fashions himself in the likeness of a bridge, this paper explores several possible meanings imminent in the text with special attention to
The bridge we chose to select for our research paper is the Blue Water Bridge. The Blue Water Bridge spreads across the St. Clair River and conducts international traffic between Port Huron, Michigan, and Point Edward and Sarnia, Ontario. According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, “Located near the I-94 and I-69 interchange, the bridge forms a critical gateway linking Canada and the United States”. The Blue Water Bridge consists of tolls and inspection plazas on each side of the border
of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works,, Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri . This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked
Gustave Eiffel was born in 1832 in Cote-d’Or, France and died in 1923 in Paris, France. He was an architect who started building bridges and worked his way up to creating the world famous, Eiffel Tower. Although he was born in Cote-d’Or he was raised in Paris. His mother owned a charcoal-distribution business that she inherited from her parents. At the time of his birth his dad was an administrator for the French army but soon joined his mom. The family came up with the name Eiffel from the Eifel
years, there have been many bridge that have collapsed, causing many lives to be put in danger and lost. This project is to determine how much weight it would take for different scale model designs of truss bridges to collapse when weight, pressure, and gravity is applied to them. This experiment will test which truss bridge designs of, Pratt, Warren, and Howe. I chose this project because I want to see which truss bridge could hold the most weight capacity. Bridges are structures used by people
What makes modern architecture? Before answering this, one would need to understand what the term “modern” exactly describes. In architecture, modernism is the movement or transition from one period to another, and it is caused by cultural, territorial, and technological changes happening in the world. In Kenneth Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History, he details these three major societal changes that impact and create modern architecture. Cultural Transformations: Society’s Impact
construction, and restoration of the Longfellow Bridge that connects the cities of Boston, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts across the Charles River. Named for a Love Poem I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o’er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. These lines, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1845 famous poem The Bridge, describe a moment of his frequent journey across the Cambridge Bridge separating his home from that of his future
was given the seemingly impossible task of constructing a bridge to cross the Mississippi River. The steel industry, even though having many flaws, was the most prominent in America’s development and significantly contributed to it’s urbanization. The steel industry greatly advanced America’s urbanization through its expansion of railroads which led to a wider exportation of goods and impacted vertical integration, other industries,
The collapse of the Tay bridge has interested engineers, scientists and members of the public for decades. There have been many enquiries into the collapse and theories proposed as to why it happened. For hours after the disaster, people were left confused and perplexed about the facts concerning what they had observed. It was unclear whether the train, and the passengers, had survived the storm and furthermore there was the shock of how such a robust and recently built bridge had actually collapsed
Andrew Carnegie was once claimed the richest man in the world. He built a fortune from a meager beginning. Carnegie was a hard working man who refused to quit. He was dedicated to perform well and held respect for quality work. However, Carnegie faced a constant challenge through his success; his values often conflicted with his success. Carnegie was able to offset this conflict through his donations to the public after his retirement from the steel industry. He has been better remembered for his
between it and the surrounding environment, it is also known as rust. Corrosion is a disease to metals. It occurs when a gas or liquid chemically attacks an exposed surface of a metal (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016). All metals can be corroded. Pure Iron corrodes the fastest. Noble Metals rarely corrode because they are less reactive than most metals (Bell, 2017). There are 10 types of corrosion, General Attack Corrosion, Localized Corrosion, Galvanic Corrosion, Environmental Cracking, Flow-Assisted
Different Types of Bridges The quest for travel has always been one that man has tried to conquer. First, he traveled on foot, and then developed methods of transportation such as boats, but one of the first obstacles that he had to overcome was getting across rivers, waterways, and canals. Today, bridges have become a part of everyday life; hence without them, people would have a much more difficult time going from one place to another. In the United States alone, there are more than half a million