Project 2- Technical Definition and Description

To: Professor Thompson

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From: Sierra Anderson
Date: October 4th, 2015
Subject: Project 2- Technical Definition and Description
This memo explains the audience, purpose and placement for project 2. I chose to
write the technical definition and description of bridges since its related to my field
and interests.
Audience
The intended audience for this project is freshman students pursuing a civil
engineering degree. Bridges is a huge part to civil engineering and students need to
understand them at the beginning of their degree to help them throughout their
degree.
Purpose
Many civil engineering students dont understand in depth what a bridge is and how
it works. The purpose for the technical definition is to inform the students what a
bridge is and that theyll be working with them. The technical description is to
describe how a bridge works and that the students will be learning how to design
and build bridges for it to work in that way.
Placement
This document is intended to be placed in a classroom setting. The prime placement
would be in the beginning of a slideshow when the topic of bridges is being
introduced to a freshman civil engineering class.

Project 2- Technical Definition and Description

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Technical Definition
A bridge is a structure that connects two pieces of land over water. There are many
different types of bridges for different reasons. All types of bridges come from the
basic bridge slab which is the material that the platform is made of for different
uses (walking, driving, etc.). From there they grow based on the support that is
needed in order for the slab not to fail which would make the whole bridge fail.
Overall, bridges are a pathway for civilization to move from one piece of land to the
other.
Footbridge

Meant for walking/ biking over a short distance that cant be crossed without
a small bridge.

Transportation bridges

Used over a river for vehicles to commute across and still allow ships and
boats to move under.
Placed over area that dont allow for easy transportation, such as a large gap
between mountains/ rocks.

Depending on the type of bridge, there are different ways they are designed and
built to fulfill the purpose. Typically a bridge is a truss of metal, suspension of cable,
or concrete arches.

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Technical Description
A bridge works by taking the load along the deck and delivering it to the main
supports. Different types of bridges work by different methods to handle the
loading.
Truss Bridge
For a truss bridge, the metal beams and poles are put together in triangles and
cross beams for support. Triangles are the best choice when designing a truss
because of how it evenly delivers the load on the bridge between the three bars and
then add onto the base of the truss or cross beams. Once the load is distributed
onto the base beam the load is delivered to the supports.

Suspension Bridge
Suspension bridges are built out of metal and cables. There will be large supports
(towers) made of metal along the bridge that cables come from and connect to the
bridges slab to carry the load along the bridge to the towers and anchorages.

Arch Bridge
Concrete arches are built from the bottom up. These have bases along the ground
that the arches come from and connect to the slab, such as two cylinders that
connect in an n shape under the slab.

Project 2- Technical Definition and Description

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Image Sources By Order

www.lowes.com
science.howstuffworks.com
brawijaya2.tripod.com
science.howstuffworks.com
www.acyi.besd.net