Bridges
BridgesREASEARCH PAPER Bridges have been around sense the beginning of time. The Ancient Roman engineers used two significant innovations, the cofferdam and cement. The cofferdam is when the put wooden spikes in to the bottom of the river then used watertight clay over the spikes to make a bridge. Now today there are more efficient ways to make a bridge then just out of cement and clay. There are Suspension Bridges, Arch Bridges, Covered Bridges and many more. Suspension bridges have become a very common method of bridge construction in the last century. For example the Brooklyn Bridge, George Washington Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. These bridges all use the conventional suspension bridge design were large cables are suspended between towers and smaller cables are used to hang the bridge deck from the larger cables. They now have a newer method it is where the cables run directly down from the towers to the roadway. Construction of cable-stayed bridges has proven to be less costly then suspension bridges. As a result, Cable-stayed bridges are more widely used. The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, connecting Kobe on the mainland with Awaji on Awaji Island, will be a huge three-span cable-stayed bridge some 3910 meters in total length with a center span of 1990 meters. When completed, it will be the longest bridge of its type in the world, surpassing the Number Bridge in the UK, which has a center span of 1410 meters. The bridge has a wind-proof and earthquake-resident construction, withstanding winds up to 80 meters per second and earthquakes reaching from...
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