Friday, 23 August 2013

What bridge do you drive on?


What type of bridge is this?
Why do bridges come in all sorts of shapes and sizes?

Bridges save you a lot of travel time. Some of them can be massive and the loads they take are phenomenal. 

Engineers choose different types of bridges to span an obstacle based on its suitability under the usual environmental conditions.

Bridges span obstacles such as rivers or valleys. It has to carry its own load as well as the loads of vehicles running over them. The chosen design takes the loads and distributes them through a combination of tension and compression into a few key supports. 

The following pictures show how some typical bridges distribute their loads.