During this week in lab my group came in with a design that
had been previously tested but we knew we needed to make stronger. The first
thing we did was added a deck truss to our original design because we knew that
the weak spot on the bridge was the gusset plates in the middle. The deck added
support for that area and gave it extra strength. When we tested the bridge we
found that it held more weight with the deck, in the end holding about 19
pounds. The cost of our current bridge is about $320,000 so getting the cost
down is also something that we need to do. This coming week we will be
brainstorming our ideas about the 3 foot bridge we will be designing in the
upcoming weeks, taking the things we learned about our previous bridge and
working from there.
If I could know any numbers for this project I would
definitely want to know the compression and tension forces (just like in WPBD)
at each gusset plate. It seems like many of the problems are found at the
gusset plate and so that’s where I think the most research and calculations
would need to be performed. I would also want to know maybe if there is a way
to calculate the maximum weight that a bridge could hold with certain values.
Kelsey McSorley
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