Road Construction Methods have changed a lot since the first roads were built in about 4000 BC. Read on to learn more about road construction methods and procedures. In ancient times, river transport was much faster and easier than road transport. The Romans were one of the first to build stone paved roads in North…
On 15th September 1958, the commuter train carrying passengers from Bay Head to Jersey Central met with a fatal accident. The engineer ignored three warning lights and both train locomotives tumbled off the end of an open drawbridge, dragging two of their five cars into the waters of Newark Bay. Freight/Passenger Train Transformed to Commuter…
The bridges, which link past to present and age gracefully, are one of the most important engineering structures. The bridges with different characteristics, thanks to their views, effects, and feelings during passing on, holds around and locations bring together the people for ages. In early applications, the bridges were designed as short span and narrow…
Steel-concrete composite bridges had a strong growth in railways and highways since the construction system provides an efficient and cost-effective form. The combination of steel and concrete in a single composite structural element enhances the individual advantages of both materials. By utilizing the tensile strength of steel in the main girder and the compressive strength…
Many methods have been proposed for mitigating the harmful effects of strong earthquakes. The conventional approach requires that structure passively resist through a combination of strength, deformability and energy absorption. The level of damping in these structures is typically low. During earthquakes, these structures deform well beyond the elastic limit and remain intact due to…
This chapter focuses on stone-masonry bridges that were built in Greece during the last 300 years and most of them survive today (Figure 1a and b). FIGURE 1. (a) Konitsa Bridge, Ipiros, Greece and (b) Kokorou Bridge, Ipiros, Greece. FIGURE 2. The royal tomb of Atreus at Mycenae in Peloponnese, Southern Greece. The use of the stone-masonry arch…
The visual impact of an urban overpass or bridge inserted into a road network requires a careful study of its aesthetic aspect by its engineers. The importance of the aesthetic analysis of the infrastructure design in serving the public good demands special attention because of the densely built‐up nature of the site where it is…
Highway bridges have the main objective of carrying traffic; therefore traffic loading is a primary source of stress on the structure – quite often the largest one. However, traffic conditions are rather variable, as they depend on many factors, ranging from the macroscale (such as economic development) to the microscale (such as individual driver behaviour)….
Sustainable bridges is a term exemplifying the general idea of sustainable development. The concept is a result of the works of a UN commission—the World Commission on Environment and Development—conducted from December 1983 to December 1987 and concluded with the report Our Common Future. At present, several definitions of the basic concept and its specific component…
In the field of construction, beam load calculations can become truly critical and require special attention as well as accurate implementation of the results. A simple yet effective way of calculating beam loads is discussed here through derived formulas and expressions. Just a look around will relate to us the simple, yet interesting fact that…