Tuesday, May 28, 2019

A Civil Engineering Success :: essays research papers

Civil Engineering History and HeritageU.S. 20 Iowa River BridgeThe Iowa River Bridge on Highway U.S.20 was built in such a way that it not only was able to expand the once two highroad blacktop roads into a intravenous feeding lane highway, but also to keep environmental impacts of construction and existence of the bridge to a minimum. The $21 million dollar bridge consists of two 12.0 m capacious deck structures that each contain five spans of 92 m. These deck structures are made from erecting a weathering steel I-Girder superstructure. Each deck structure depart consist of a 230 mm concrete slab with a 38 mm low-slump concrete wearing course supported by a system of four 3450 mm deep I-girders spaced at 3600 mm centers(1). The support for these structures will be cast-in-place reinforced concrete substructure units. These units consist of two column bents ranging in heights of 20 m to 38 m, and are founded on drilled shafts or driven H-Piles. Engineering SuccessThe constructio n order used on this bridge is the first of its kind in the United States on a steel I-girder highway. The bridge was constructed by a launch erection method in order to avoid damaging its surroundings. This method allowed for large steel portions of the structure to be assembled on large rollers behind one of the bridge abutments and then pushed from dock to pier with the use of hydraulic thrusts (or pulling with motors and cables). This area is one of few woodlands left in Iowa, and by doing intensive research Engineers were able to obtain their address while leaving as much of the natural surroundings unaffected as possible. Lessons LearnedAs stated earlier, this was the first use of this construction method and therefore a lot of lessons came from this erection of this bridge. Among these were mostly environmental concerns. The reason this method was necessary is due to all of the environmental concerns through the Iowa Greenbelt, which is home to a number of endangered anima ls, plants and aquatic life. Another aspect of the bridge that the environmental issues affected was the timeline. This included a winter shut-down for a little over 5 months due to the eagles roost, as well as the need to shut down any time noise or activities seemed to disrupt the eagles roosting habits.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.