Build a Bridge

This year is the bicentenary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Much will be done to celebrate it. In "Sweat and Inspiration" by Martin Worth (ISBN0-7509-2675-9), I K Brunel is mentioned as only one of numerous great engineers, the rest of whom are not so much celebrated in Britain. And these are just some of the many 18th and 19th century British engineers who did so much to change our world. There were, and there are, of course, many great engineers around the world, so let's let celebrate Brunel as the representative of all engineers, rather than as some kind of unique genius. Please ignore the rest of this page if you are simply looking for information about bridges, as it contains only general commentary about the contents. What is in these pages? Although the notes in these pages are about structures, they are not about engineering practice. The structures discussed in these pages are mainly heavy and rigid, but those made by people who travel are very different.

quot;How Bridges Work" We are a species of bridge builders. Since time out of mind, humans have engineered structures to surmount obstacles, such as, say, Jiaozhou Bay. The body of water is now home to a 26.4-mile (42.5-kilometer) bridge that links the busy Chinese port city of Quingdao to the Chinese suburb of Huangdou. We've tamed steel, stone, lumber and even living vegetation, all in an effort to reach the places, people and things we desire. Although the concept itself is as simple as felling a tree across a creek, bridge design and construction entails serious ingenuity. As a result, we inhabit a planet of bridges, some as ancient as Greece's 3,000-year-old Arkadiko bridge or as unchanged as India's 500-year-old Meghalaya living bridges, which are coaxed into existence from growing tree roots (more on that later). In this article, we'll get to know the bridges we so often take for granted (we literally walk and drive all over them), as well as the designs that make them possible.