CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
BRIDGE ENGINEERING
CE 523
RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT NO. 1
SUBMITTED BY:
BIMBO C. MARTIN
BABY RUTH R. ESPADILLA
ADRIAN AARON F. NGO
JUAN PAULO C. RIVERA
SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. JOHN CEDRICK L. CHAN
INSTRUCTOR
June 23, 2017
Design of Highway Bridges
(An LRFD Approach)
Third Edition-Richard M. Barker and Jay A. Puckett
CHAPTER 1 (Introduction to Bridge Engineering)
1.1 Explain why the people factor is important in bridge
engineering.
People factor is considered important in such a way that:
People have different perspective.
These perspectives can be used in designing a bridge.
1.2 In what way does a bridge control the capacity of a
transportation system?
Bridge is considered extended road to connect further
lands. Transportation system is similar to pipe lines. If a part
of the systems cause problems (say it is the bridge) the system
will performed badly and might cause problems. These problems
can be the following:
The safety of the traveller might be compromise due to lack of
planning in the design.
The efficiency of the system will decrease if the designed
bridge cannot sustain the needed requirement such as the
capacity in volume, strength and vertical length.
If the said requirement cannot be provided it will cause detours
which leads to long hours of travel, far destination, congestion
in other part of the system, accident may occur, compromise in
other part of the system and delays.
1.3 Discuss the necessity of considering life-cycle costs in the
design of bridges.
Life cycle cost is a process of determining the return of
investment in a designed bridge considering all cost and other
factors in developing bridge. Considering life –cycle cost in
designing bridge is necessary to visualize the projection of
cost in a period of time. It will provide a basis for the owner
of the structure.
1.8 Both cast-iron and wrought-iron components were used in
early metal truss and arch bridges. How do they differ in
manufacture? What makes the manufacture of steel different from
both of them?
Cast iron is a brittle alloy of iron and carbon. Before
manufacturing material made of iron, it is starts as a pig iron.
It is melted with other scrap iron and then pour in a mold to
form the needed material. This pouring of melted iron into a
mold is called casting.
Wrought iron is a malleable type of iron that can be forged
and rolled while molten while steel is a strong alloy of iron
and carbon and other elements to increase strength. In
comparison of these material, steel is different in
manufacturing in terms of it use other elements and maintaining
the needed 6 step in the process, the raw materials needed to be
dig from the ground as an ore. In the process of manufacturing,
impurities in iron is removed and replaced by different material
to form grades of steel.
1.9 Explain why the development of large-capacity testing
machines was important to the progress of steel bridges.
One other development that was critical to the bridge
design profession was the ability to verify the theoretical
predictions with experimental testing. The tensile and
compressive strengths of cast iron, wrought iron, and steel had
to be determined and evaluated. Column load curves had to be
developed by testing cross sections of various length. This
experimental work requires large- capacity testing machines
which is essential to verify the strength of the materials and
the resistance of components in bridges of ever increasing
proportions.
1.15 Explain why girder bridges are not as efficient as trusses
in resisting loads (with respect to material quantities).
With respect to the overall material usage, girders are not
as efficient as trusses in resisting loads over long spans.
However, for short and medium spans the difference in material
weight is small and girder bridges are competitive. In
addition, the girder bridges have greater stiffness and are less
subject to vibrations. This characteristic was important to the
railroads and resulted in the early application of plate girders
in their bridges.
