On December 29, 1876, 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 known and unknown. This disaster would lead to people realizing the need for structural standards for bridges and qualified engineers. In order to understand what went wrong with the Ashtabula Bridge, a person needs to understand what is supposed to happen. The Ashtabula Bridge was a truss bridge. A truss is …show more content…
This all iron design made the bridge a lot heavier than it was designed for, which added more stress to the truss. This fact, by itself, wouldn’t cause any alarm. However, the bridge itself, was very poorly constructed. The members of the bridge were all different sizes, and they were not connected together properly. Due to the poor construction and eleven years of use, members of the bridge had started to bend due to the stress. Despite bridge engineers inspecting the bridge for eleven years, no one noticed these faults with the bridge. However, the ultimate cause of this collapse, was so tiny, only one of the investigators, after the collapse, noticed it. A tiny air hole was left during the construction of the bridge, “and grew with repeated stress over eleven years” (Escher, 2009). This hole would develop in a crack, due to the changing temperatures and the trains crossing it for over eleven years. This would weaken the overall strength of the bridge. The cold winter air and the weight of the train would ultimately prove to be too much, and the whole bridge came crashing
OWLCREEK BRIDGE" ." ABP Journal. 1.1 (2005): n. page. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Bierce, Ambrose “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. The Norton Introduction to
The Bailey Island Bridge is located in Harpswell, Maine on Route 24. Before the making of the bridge, the fishermen that lived on Bailey’s Island wanted a bridge that connected their island to Orr’s Island. The town of Harpsweell made and voted on their decisions in the weekly town meetings (“Bailey”). The project was stalled because of some of the mainlanders in the town, but it was brought back up for discussion in 1912. They first agreed on a “road” which would connect the two islands and would be constructed with timber. This was to cost $3,000. The cost quickly reached $25,000 at a later town meting because they decided to build the bridge with stone and concrete instead. Once the legislature decided to pass a bill stating that it would fun state’s highway and bridge projects, they decided to move forward with the project (Hansen, 36).
In the aftermath of the collapse of the walkways, investigations revealed that a breakdown in communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates and Havens Steels Company was largely responsible for the fatal design flaw.
Following the American Civil War, the use of railroads for trade was booming. The Detroit, Michigan and Windsor Ontario border, separated by the Detroit River, was a center for railroads at the time with the Michigan Central and Great Western railroads operating on their respective sides of the border. In the early 20th century, the railroads used ferries to transport shipments across the river. As production and population grew, so did the shipments of goods, specifically grain. An increasing delay in the supply and demand of agricultural products was hurting the economy for both farmers and consumers. In 1909, a tunnel was constructed to transport trains under the Detroit River but the need for a bridge with mass transportation abilities was still needed. This led to the construction of the Ambassador Bridge in 1929, funded by financier Joseph Bower and engineered and constructed by the heralded Pittsburgh McClintic-Marshall Company. No one could have ever foreseen the societal and economical impact the decision to engineer a bridge would have.
The I-35 Bridge collapse in 2007 was not the result of a single safety precaution being overlooked; it was primarily due to a miscalculation by the original design team, Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates. While the accountability can be placed on Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, the only way to learn from such disasters is to delve deeper into the root cause and determine why this minute, yet extremely important, detail was overlooked for over 40 years.
The Jericho Covered Bridge in Kingsville, Maryland was built in 1865 and restored in 1982. The bridge is 100 feet long and cased in cedar planks and timber beams. Legend has it that after the Civil War many lynchings occurred on the bridge. Passersby were supposedly captured on the bridge and hung from the upper rafters. The bridge is very close to my house and I have driven over it several times. The storyteller, age 19, also lives a couple minutes away from the bridge. He has lived in Kingsville, Maryland his entire life. He recalled a dramatic story he had heard from his older brother involving the haunted bridge.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was also known as the Galloping Gertie, was one of the most famous cause study of structure failure in the world. The idea for constructuring of the bridge came up in the date back to 1889 with a Northern Pacific Railway proposal for a trestle. Then after a few yerars of concreted and construction with the cost of over 6,400,000 dallors, the bridge was been build and became the third longest and the most flexible suspension bridge in the world of its time of 1900s with a toatl length of 1810m. It was designed as a twin suspension bridge which located between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula in United States. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened for traffic on July 1, 1940. After being in service for 129 days, unfortunately, the failure occurred at the late morning of Novermber 7, 1940 under a high wind condition. Then a new bridge was build as replacement which opened on 1950 and still remained today as the westbound lanes of the present-day twin bridge complex.
The 14-year construction of this urban landmark that stretched across the East River was completed in May of 1883. This was not only a bridge; it stood for many significant symbols. During this time period, the industrial aspects of things were at its peak and this represented the strength of the industry. Also it symbolized the use of immigrant workers and how much time and effort they put into making this bridge. Twenty seven men died while creating this bridge and that is something that most people forget when looking at the bridge, people risked there lives while giving a society that people needed. Not only that but it took tons and tons of steel and iron in order to complete this bridge and it was part of the steel and iron boom. This landmark led to the rise o...
The first and most challenging problem associated with building the Mackinac Bridge arrived long before the bridge was even designed. Financing such an enormous project was no easy feat. In 1928, the idea of connecting the upper and lower peninsulas was proposed to Congress for the first time (Brown 4). At the time, the suspected bridge project was very much under government scrutiny and control. In fact, the initial boost in interest in pursuing the construction of a bridge came about due to the depression. The Public Works Administration (PWA) had been created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal economic plan which would fund certain construction projects with th...
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is perhaps the most notorious failure in the world of engineering. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 just months after its opening on July 1, 1940. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff and at its time it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of over half a mile long. The bridge was very narrow and sleek giving it a look of grace, but this design made it very flexible in the wind. Nicknamed the "Galloping Gertie," because of its undulating behavior, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge drew the attention of motorists seeking a cheap thrill. Drivers felt that they were driving on a roller coaster, as they would disappear from sight in the trough of the wave. On the last day of the bridge's existence it gave fair warning that its destruction was eminent. Not only did it oscillate up and down, but twisted side to side in a cork screw motion. After hours of this violent motion with wind speeds reaching forty and fifty miles per hour, the bridge collapsed. With such a catastrophic failure, many people ask why such an apparently well thought out plan could have failed so badly?(This rhetorical question clearly sets up a position of inquiry-which iniates all research.) The reason for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still controversial, but three theories reveal the basis of an engineering explanation. (Jason then directly asserts what he found to be a possible answer to his question.)
"An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge." Classic Reader. 2009. BlackDog Media, Web. 2 Dec 2009. .
In her essay,”Importance of the Golden Gate Bridge,” Stephanie Stiavetti suggest that “It maintained this point of pride for nearly 25 years until the Verrazano- Narrows Bridge was built in New York in 1964. Today, this historic San Francisco landmark holds its place as the second largest suspension bridge in the country, behind Verrazano Narrows.” Back then, experts thought that it would be impossible to build a bridge across the tides and currents in that area because strong currents and tides would make construction extremely difficult and dangerous. The water is over 500 feet deep in the center of the channel, and along with the area's strong winds and thick fog, the idea of building a bridge there seemed nearly impossible. Despite all of the problems of building a bridge across the Golden Gate, Joseph Strauss was named as lead engineer for the project. Construction began January 5, 1933, and in the end cost more than $35 million to
built, and after half the livestock and people had left the dry area, the bridge collapsed,
For example, a blast of compressed air ruined a caisson, which slowed the process of building the bridge. Construction was also delayed by a weeks-long fire in one of the caissons. In addition, a cable became detached from its anchorage and fell into the East River, and there was a fraud involving a steel-wire contractor that required tons of cable to be
For this bridge its fall was inflicted by an unknown patron. One who’s identity or existence we never see verified. The record of the fall is short in the story described as only being for a moment. Then the bridge was finally introduced to “the sharp rocks which had always gazed up at me so peacefully from the rushing water”. Rocks gazing peacefully? This is almost as absurd as a bridge turning around. An action that the bridge itself cannot seem to believe it is doing. This attempt by the bridge was his final effort before his fall. I cannot even picture how a bridge would turn around and attempt to look on his back. The question that comes to my mind is how can a bridge see what’s on his back? If this book is trying to make us believe that this bridge is a human, or has human like qualities. Then how flexible a person is this bridge? Because I know very few people who can see whats on their back. Especially without turning so much that anything on their back would fall off. So is this bridge so inflexible that it breaks itself by turning around or is it trying to buck off its attacker unintentionally? This answer is never answered due to the story ending shortly thereafter this scene. With the short fall of the bridge onto the sharp rocks it had stared at for the entirety of its life. The events before and during the fall of the bridge was the main issue I had with my thesis that the bridge was