Engineering Marvels | Forums

[vladiiiiiiii]

Although I have never designed anything quite this extreme I thought I would share this presentation a colleague sent me today. It is the recently opened Hoover Dam bridge being built over several years.

To get the full effect, open or download in PowerPoint from the file menu and play the full screen slide show!
Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge

Fun Facts:
1. Length - 1900 ft.
2. Clearance below - 900 ft.
3. Construction Cost - $240,000,000
4. Completed - 2010 (took 5 years to build)
5. It is the first ARCH bridge in the United States to use a concrete substructure with a steel superstructure
6. It is open to pedestrians!
7. There was one fatality during construction. A construction worker was killed while adjusting a cable used to align temporary concrete towers, when a jack punctured his chest.

[rlmergeuser]

Bridge building sounds like a brutal profession

[IFTHISTHENTHAT]

Very cool thanks for sharing vladiiiiiiii.

[sparkierjonesz]

that could be me in a few years

i just need "some" luck in my job opportunities

[nannerdw]

I've always found projects focusing on disaster prevention really interesting, too.
My favorite class during senior year was about engineering projects that went wrong, and what could have been done to prevent them. We looked at stuff like boiler explosions, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the Great Boston Molasses Flood. Then we looked at projects to prevent natural disasters. The one that really stood out was the installation of a gas vent in Lake Nyos, the lake that released a giant pocket of CO2 in the 80s and suffocated a town of over 1700 people. Really interesting stuff.