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The arch bridge can hold the most weight of the three, the deck truss bridge can hold an average amount of weight, and the beam bridge could hold the least amount of weight. This experiment tested the arch, deck truss, and beam bridges to see which could hold the heaviest amount of weight.
What type of bridge is strongest?
An arch bridge is stronger than a beam bridge, simply because the beam has a weak point in the center where there is no vertical support while arches press the weight outward toward the support.
What type of truss bridge is the strongest?
In this experiment we have tested which type of truss bridge is the strongest, yet uses the least amount of material. Two of the most used truss bridges are of the Pratt and Howe design. Through our experiment it was found that the bridge design that minimized the maximum compression force was the Howe Bridge.
What makes a bridge hold a lot of weight?
Balancing forces in a bridge An arch bridge supports loads through compression. A suspension bridge has its piers (towers) in compression and the deck hangs from thick suspension cables by thinner cables, all of which are in tension.
Which bridge design is the weakest?
We did further research after our experiment and learned that beam bridges are actually the weakest of all bridges and suspension bridges are the strongest.
Are taller bridges stronger?
The amount a piece of wood can support in compression before buckling decreases with length. So that means the middle members will have to be made stronger the taller the bridge is.
Is Howe or Pratt truss stronger?
The Howe truss had an average load-to-mass ratio of 512.61 and deflected 13.23 mm on average. The Pratt truss had an average load-to-mass ratio of 528.93 and deflected 9.53 mm on average. The Pratt truss deflected the least and had the highest load-to-mass ratio.
What is the cheapest bridge to build?
BEAM BRIDGE The simplicity of the beam bridge made it the first type of bridge ever built. It’s still the cheapest to build. All you need is a crossbeam covering the span, supported by an abutment at each end. One type of beam bridge is a girder bridge, which employs steel girders as reinforcement.
What are the 3 main types of bridges?
Three basic types of bridges used in transportation are: beam and truss bridges, arch bridges and suspension bridges. To understand how bridges work, we must understand the forces that act on every bridge.
What is the simplest bridge to build?
Beam Bridge A beam or “girder” bridge is the simplest and most inexpensive kind of bridge. According to Craig Finley of Finley/McNary Engineering, “they’re basically the vanillas of the bridge world.” In its most basic form, a beam bridge consists of a horizontal beam that is supported at each end by piers.
What is the strongest shape for a paper bridge?
The triangle is the strongest to as it holds it shape and has a base which is very strong a also has a strong support. The triangle is common in all sorts of building supports and trusses. The overall shape of many bridges is in the shape of a catenary curve.
What type of bridge is the Golden Gate Bridge?
Golden Gate Bridge, suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate in California to link San Francisco with Marin county to the north. Upon its completion in 1937, it was the tallest and longest suspension bridge in the world.
What is the most common type of 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.
Why arches are preferred over beams?
In masonry construction, arches have several great advantages over horizontal beams, or lintels. An arch can also carry a much greater load than a horizontal beam can support. This carrying capacity stems from the fact that pressure downward on an arch has the effect of forcing the voussoirs together instead of apart.
Are arch bridges strong?
Arch bridges are one of the oldest types of bridges and have great natural strength. Instead of pushing straight down, the weight of an arch bridge is carried outward along the curve of the arch to the supports at each end.
How tall should bridges be?
The federal government recommends that bridges on public roads have a clearance of at least 14 feet. This ensures that trucks shorter than the maximum truck height — 13 feet, 6 inches in most states — can pass underneath them safely.
What is a Warren bridge?
The Warren Truss is a very common design for both real and model bridges. The Warren Truss uses equilateral triangles to spread out the loads on the bridge. This is opposed to the Neville Truss which used isosceles triangles. The equilateral triangles minimize the forces to only compression and tension.
What is the strongest Popsicle stick bridge design?
The triangle design is “stronger”—the popsicle sticks are arranged in such a way in this shape that when you push or pull on them, none of them can rotate.
What truss design is the strongest?
Of the three bridge designs I tested (warren-truss, pratt-truss, k-truss) the warren-truss held the most weight. I tested each design 5 times and the average for the warren was 43.6 pounds. The k average was 31 pounds and the pratt design was the weakest and averaged 13.6 pounds.
Why is the Howe truss the best?
The Howe and Pratt trusses found favor because they used far fewer members. The only maintenance a Howe truss requires is adjustment of the nuts on the vertical posts to equalize strain.
