Week 4: Amanda Ngov

The previous week showed different types of truss bridge designs to further stimulate the create flow of ideas to incorporate into the final design or further development of a bridge. In addition, the experience and process of editing and changing a particular design was seen through the testing of a bridge design to lower the cost but improve the efficiency and stability. Though it did not appear that the following design shown below in figure 1 was the most efficient, the process allowed the further education of the field and subject. Failure to notice or explore different ideas was experienced due to the lack of experience in the field and limited amount of time to recognize various designs. The exploration for new designs for a truss bridge is still being examined; consequently, a final design has yet to be finalized. The upcoming week requires more research on differing designs on truss bridges and further perfection on the cost and capacity ratio.

Figure 1: Design submitted of the truss bridge

Throughout the process of the bridge design, the program called West Point Bridge Design (also WPBD) was in constant use and utilized in many ways. For example, the stability of the structure, amount of weight a point load that could be tolerated and the compression and tension force amount was recorded. In addition, the program offered a hands-on experience of the civil engineering field. Also, WPBD allowed constant changes and edits because the design process is an ongoing process that constantly is not definitive. It is similar to the real-world problems where natural occurrences or damages created must be taken into consideration for the most efficient design. Another real-world problem that must be taken into awareness would be the balance between the height, weight and cost. With this in mind, the program also allowed changes in differing materials and lengths of bars and tubes for beams. Unfortunately, the unrealistic or unaffected features were also present within the program. For example, the program did not consider the three dimensional analysis of the design along with the environmental factors, such as earthquakes, water and rain, traffic, erosion and wind, because it focused on the two dimensional analysis. In addition, the program did not factor the amount of deflection the bridge passed. The deflection point of a bridge should not be significant because the program only considered the level of tension and compression recorded in the steal beams. Finally, WPBD did not care for the aesthetics values of the bridge design. In the real world community members also value the appearance of the bridge if it is in sight. The program WPBD has a number of benefits but also has many flaws and disadvantages.