TITLES PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE
RESULT
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all ,we would like to thank the Pengarah ofKolej Mara Kuala
Nerang,PuanShaariahBtDahman because of allowing us to complete our Physic Project and
also because of inspiring us to study well in our foundation program. We promise to prove to
our Pengarah that we will get the best result for the program followed with the college motto
the gred is A, the number is 4.
Lot of thanks to [Link] B. Jamaluddin because of giving us the task to do the Physics
Project. We are taking this as a chance to us and an oppurtunities to study and search about
the surroundings and natural phenomenon. We will promise to do the best for our Physics
Project.
Then we want to give a big appreciation to our own parent because of giving us the very big
support in many things such as motivation, money, our studies and others. Without them we
will not be here to be the student of Kolej Mara Kuala Nerang. We know sometimes we make
them disappointed because of our result , therefore here is the place for us to improve our
result back so that we can prove that we are not a person that does not concern aboutour
studies.
Lastly, we would like to say that this project is the best from us, we hope that the information
of our project will give good information and give positive feedback to the student that read
about it. Therefore, the goods are all from Allah, the bads are all from us.
INTRODUCTION
A bridge is a structure built to span a valley, road, body of water, or other physical obstacle,
for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. Designs of bridges vary depending on
the function of the bridge, the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed, the
material used to make it and the funds available to build it. We are going to search about the
stability of a bridge because to apply the physic concept.
Stability of bridge have so many physics concept applied on it, that is why we are doing
research about it and we want to share with our friends about it. Some of the concept are
force and equilibrium,tension, type of materials that been used, static, vector, suspension and
others.
A bridge need to be stable and strong because the uses of the bridge is for long term until the
upcoming generation can still use it just like the Penang bridge, Humber bridge, Golden Gate
bridge, Brooklyn bridge and others. As an example,in1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
twisted violently in strong winds and collapsed. The twisting force that tore this bridge in half
is called torsion.
Therefore, we will try to search all the factors that can effect the stability of a bridge so that
people can open their mind and get to know more knowledge about the stability of bridge.
PURPOSE
To study about the physic concept of the stability of a bridge.
To learn more about the stable structure of a bridge.
To know how to make a stable and safer bridge.
To fulfil the physic assessment.
To apply physic concept in our daily life especially in the stability of bridge.
To appreciate and practise the concept of physic in our daily life.
RESULT
To make a stable bridge, we must consider all factors, which is materials, shapes, loads and
forces. All these factors are very important because it will decide whether the bridge is stable
or not. As we all know, safety first, so we don’t want to build a bridge which is not stable. On
the other hand, the importance of building a stable bridge is to ensure that the next generation
can use it safely.
The appropriate procedure to build a bridge is by dividing into four main labs which is
Material Lab, Shapes Lab, Loads Lab, and Forces Lab. These labs are given the task to do the
research about their own features. With these methods, quality results can be produce, hence
a more stable bridge can be build.
MATERIAL LAB
Types of
material
Woods Properties
Type: Spruce (softwood)
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Cheap, lightweight, moderately strong in compression and tension
Weaknesses: Rots, swells and burns easily
Applications
Bridges, houses, two- to three-story buildings, roller coasters
Example: Son of Beast -- Cincinnati, Ohio
Compression Message
You squeezed this block easily, but it took a lot of effort to make it break.
Wood is cheap and pretty strong in compression. That's why people build
houses out of wood!
Tension Message
It wasn't easy to break this block of wood because wood is strong when you
pull it in the direction of its fibers. It would have been three times easier for
you to break this block if you'd stretched it from the top and bottom
Plastic Properties
Type: High-strength plastic fabric Ingredients: Long chains of molecules
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Flexible, lightweight, long-lasting, strong in compression and
tension
Weaknesses: Expensive
Applications
Umbrellas, inflatable roofs over sports arenas
Example: Georgia Dome -- Atlanta, Georgia
Compression Message
Compared to steel, you squeezed this plastic block easily, but it took a lot of
effort to make it break. The long chains of molecules that make up plastic can
be pulled and pushed in many directions without failing.
Tension Message
You stretched this plastic pretty far before it finally broke. The long chains of
molecules that make up plastic can be pulled in many directions without
snapping. That's one of the reasons why circus tents are made of plastic fabric!
Aluminium Properties
Type: Aluminum alloy Ingredients: Aluminum with magnesium & copper
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Lightweight, doesn't rust, strong in compression and tension
Weaknesses: Expensive
Applications
Airplane wings, boats, cars, skyscraper "skin"
Example: Petronas Towers -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Compression Message
It was pretty hard for you to break this aluminum block. That's because the
magnesium and copper inside this block makes it almost as strong as steel!
Tension Message
It wasn't easy to break this aluminum block. That's because aluminum, when
combined with metals like magnesium and copper, is almost as strong as steel!
Brick Properties
Type: Ordinary brick Ingredients: Burned clay
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Cheap, strong in compression
Weaknesses: Heavy, weak in tension
Applications
Walls of early skyscrapers and tunnels, domes
Example: Original Thames Tunnel -- London, England
Compression Message
You had to push this brick very hard to make it crumble. Bricks are very strong
in compression. That's why early houses were made of brick!
Tension Message
You pulled this brick apart easily! That's because bricks are very weak in
tension.
Concrete Properties
Type: Fine-grain concrete Ingredients: Cement, water, small stones
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Cheap, fireproof and weatherproof, molds to any shape, strong in
compression
Weaknesses: Cracks with temperature changes, weak in tension
Applications
Early arch bridges and domes
Example: Pantheon - Rome, Italy
Compression Message
You had to squeeze this concrete block really hard to make it break. That's
because concrete is very strong in compression.
Tension Message
You pulled apart the small stones and cement in this concrete block easily.
That's because concrete is weak in tension.
Reinforced Properties
Concrete Type: Fine-grain concrete with high-strength steel Ingredients: Steel bars
hidden in concrete
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Low cost, fireproof and weatherproof, molds to any shape, strong in
compression and tension
Weaknesses: Can crack as it cools and hardens
Applications
Bridges, dams, domes, beams and columns in skyscrapers
Example: Hoover Dam - Nevada/Arizona border
Compression Message
You had to squeeze this block really hard to make it break. That's because
concrete and steel are both very strong in compression.
Tension Message
It was hard to pull this concrete block apart because the steel bars inside make
it very strong in tension. That's why some of the tallest skyscrapers in the
world are made of reinforced concrete.
Iron Properties
Type: Cast iron Ingredients: Iron with lots of carbon
Pros+Cons
Strengths: Molds to any shape, strong in compression
Weaknesses: Weaker than steel in tension, breaks without warning
Applications
Arch bridges, cannons, historic domes
Example: Iron Bridge - Shropshire, England
Compression Message
It wasn't easy for you to squeeze this cast-iron block. Cast iron is strong in
compression. That's why early arch bridges were made of cast iron.
Tension Message
It was easy for you to pull this cast-iron block apart. That's because cast iron is
brittle -- it snaps without warning.
Steel Properties
Type: High-strength steel
Ingredients: Iron with a touch of carbon
Pros+Cons
Strengths: One of strongest materials used in construction, strong in
compression and tension
Weaknesses: Rusts, loses strength in extremely high temperatures
Applications
Cables in suspension bridges, trusses, beams and columns in skyscrapers, roller
coasters
Example: Sears Tower - Chicago, Illinois
Compression Message
You had to push extra hard on this steel block to make it bend and break. Steel
is stronger than any other material in compression. That's why engineers
choose steel beams and columns to support most skyscrapers.
Tension Message
You had to pull this block incredibly hard to make it break because steel is
stronger than any other material in tension. That's why the cables in the Golden
Gate Bridge are made of steel.
SHAPES LAB
These labs simplify the real-life conditions that affect structures (shapes), in order to illustrate
key concepts. In the real world, many variables affect the strength and stability of any give
shape. The choice of materials, joints, load distribution, and size and thickness of a structure
all affect its ability to resist loads. For example, a triangle made of paper would collapse
much sooner than an arch made of steel -- an effect that was not demonstrated in this lab.
The shape comparisons in this lab depend upon the following conditions: each shape is of
equivalent thickness, the joints are hinged, and the live load is applied downward to the
structure at a single point at its top and center.
Example of the 3 common shapes to build big structure:
RECTANGLE TRIANGLE ARCH
TYPE OF SHAPE THE STABILITY WHEN APPLIED A
FORCE
TRIANGLE One Elephant on Triangle
The weight causes the top two sides to
squeeze together and the bottom side to pull
apart.
Three Elephant on Triangle
Unlike the rectangle, the sides of the triangle
did not bend under the tremendous weight.
Six Elephant on Triangle
The triangle is still standing because the
pulling force in the bottom side is balancing
the pushing forces in the upper sides.
Nine Elephant on Triangle
Even triangles have their limits! All this
weight made the third side stretch so much
that it snapped in half.
RECTANGLE One Elephant on Rectangle
The weight pushes down on the rectangle and
causes the top side to bend.
Three Elephant on Rectangle
The weight caused the top side to bend too
much, so it failed!
Six Elephant on Rectangle
The weight caused the top side to bend too
much, so it failed!
Nine Elephant on Rectangle
The weight caused the top side to bend too
much, so it failed!
ARCH One Elephant on Arch
The weight presses down on the arch and is
spread outward along the curve to the ground
below.
Three Elephant on Arch
The arch likes to be pushed and squeezed.
The weight pushes this arch into a stable,
tightly squeezed shape.
Six Elephant on Arch
The arch likes to be pushed and squeezed, but
not this much! When an arch is pushed too
hard, the sides spread apart and collapse.
Nine Elephant on Arch
The arch likes to be pushed and squeezed, but
not this much! When an arch is pushed too
hard, the sides spread apart and collapse.
Push Rectangle
What happens when you push the side of a rectangle?
The rectangle is a wobbly, unstable shape. When you push the side, it flops into a slanted
parallelogram. This happens without any of the rectangle's sides changing length.
Push Braced Rectangle
Now when you push the side, the diagonal brace gets squeezed, preventing the rectangle from
flopping over.
Push Triangle
What happens when you push the side of a triangle?
The outer edge squeezes together, and the inner edge pulls apart. When one side experiences
these two forces at the same time, it bends. The weakest part of the triangle is its side!
Push Braced Triangle
When you poke the top of the triangle, the two sides squeeze together and the bottom side
pulls apart. The triangle doesn't bend because each side experiences only one force at a time.
When used properly, triangles are the most stable and rigid shapes used in construction today.
Push Arch
What happens when you push down on an arch that is not supported on both sides?
The force of the finger pushes the sides of the arch outward.
Push Braced Arch
As the arch tries to spread outward, external supports, called buttresses, push back on the
sides of the arch and prevent it from spreading apart.
FORCES LAB
Force is the product of mass and the acceleration, F=ma, but the force can be applied in
many ways. In the bridge, force can affect the stability of the bridge because it is one of the
factor of the stability of the bridge.
The forces can make the bridge structure to damage and destroyed,below will show the types
of the forces that can affect the bridge. The forces are:
Squeezing (Compression)
Compression is a force that squeezes a material together. When a material is in compression,
it tends to become shorter.
Compression: In Real Life
The lower columns of a skyscraper are squeezed by the heavy weight above them. This
squeezing force is called compression.
Stretching (Tension)
Tension is a force that stretches a material apart. When a material is in tension, it tends to
become longer.
Tension: In Real Life
The weight of the roadway and all the cars traveling on it pull on the vertical cables in this
suspension bridge. The cables are in tension.
Bending
When a straight material becomes curved, one side squeezes together and the other side
stretches apart. This action is called bending.
Bending: In Real Life
The top side of the metal bar is pulled apart in tension, and the bottom side is squeezed
together in compression. This combination of opposite forces produces an action called
bending.
Sliding (Shear)
Shear is a force that causes parts of a material to slide past one another in opposite directions.
Ý
Shear: In Real Life
During an earthquake, parts of this roadway slid in opposite directions. This sliding action is
called shear.
Twisting (Torsion)
Torsion is an action that twists a material.
Torsion: In Real Life
In 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge twisted violently in strong winds and collapsed. The
twisting force that tore this bridge in half is called torsion. Ý
LOADS LAB
Three kinds of forces operate on any bridge, which are the dead load, the live load, and the
dynamic load. Dead load refers to the weight of the bridge itself. Like any other structure, a
bridge has a tendency to collapse simply because of the gravitational forces acting on the
materials of which the bridge is made. Live load refers to traffic that moves across the bridge
as well as normal environmental factors such as changes in temperature, precipitation, and
winds. Dynamic load refers to environmental factors that go beyond normal weather
conditions, factors such as sudden gusts of wind and earthquakes. All three factors must be
taken into consideration when building a bridge.
SUSPENSION BRIDGE
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (the load-bearing portion) is hung
below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. This type of bridge dates from the early 19th
century, while bridges without vertical suspenders have a long history in many mountainous
parts of the world.
This type of bridge has cables suspended between towers, plus vertical suspender cables that
carry the weight of the deck below, upon which traffic crosses. This arrangement allows the
deck to be level or to arc upward for additional clearance. Like other suspension bridge types,
this type often is constructed without falsework.
The suspension cables must be anchored at each end of the bridge, since any load applied to
the bridge is transformed into a tension in these main cables. The main cables continue
beyond the pillars to deck-level supports, and further continue to connections with anchors in
the ground. The roadway is supported by vertical suspender cables or rods, called hangers. In
some circumstances the towers may sit on a bluff or canyon edge where the road may
proceed directly to the main span, otherwise the bridge will usually have two smaller spans,
running between either pair of pillars and the highway, which may be supported by suspender
cables or may use a truss bridge to make this connection. In the latter case there will be very
little arc in the outboard main cables.
WIRE CABLE SUSPENSION BRIDGE
The first wire-cable suspension bridge was the Footbridge at Falls of Schuylkill (1816), a
modest and temporary structure built following the collapse of James Finley's Chain Bridge
at Falls of Schuylkill (1808), shown above. The footbridge's span was 124 m, although its
deck was only 0.45 m wide.
Wire Bridge at Fairmount (1842, replaced 1874).
Development of wire-cable suspension bridges dates to the temporary simple suspension
bridge at Annonay built by Marc Seguin and his brothers in 1822. It spanned only 18 m.[1]
The first permanent wire cable suspension bridge was Guillaume Henri Dufour’s Saint
Antoine Bridge in Geneva of 1823, with two 40 m spans.[1] The first with cables assembled in
mid-air in the modern method was Joseph Chaley’s Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribourg, in
1834.[1]
In the United States, the first major wire-cable suspension bridge was the Wire Bridge at
Fairmount in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designed by Charles Ellet, Jr. and completed in
1842, it had a span of 109 m. Ellet's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge (1847–48) was
abandoned before completion, and used as scaffolding for John A. Roebling's double decker
railroad and carriage bridge (1855).
The Otto Beit Bridge (1938–39) was the first modern suspension bridge outside the United
States built with parallel wire cables.
Suspension cable types
Suspension cable are one of the types of cable that is use to build a bridge. The function is to
maintain the structure well even with a very heavy load.
Eyebar chain cables of Clifton Suspension Bridge
Wire strand cables of Golden Gate Bridge
The main suspension cable in older bridges was often made from chain or linked bars, but
modern bridge cables are made from multiple strands of wire. This contributes greater
redundancy; a few flawed strands in the hundreds used pose very little threat, whereas a
single bad link or eye-bar can cause failure of the entire bridge. (The failure of a single eye-
bar was found to be the cause of the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River).
Another reason is that as spans increased, engineers were unable to lift larger chains into
position, whereas wire strand cables can be largely prepared in mid-air from a temporary
walkway.
Deck Structures in a Bridge
The Yichang Bridge, a plate deck suspension bridge, over the Yangtze River in China
Most suspension bridges have open truss structures to support the roadbed, particularly owing
to the unfavorable effects of using plate girders, discovered from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
(1940) bridge collapse. Recent developments in bridge aerodynamics have allowed the re-
introduction of plate structures. In the picture of the Yichang Bridge, note the very sharp
entry edge and sloping undergirders in the suspension bridge shown. This enables this type of
construction to be used without the danger of vortex shedding and consequent aeroelastic
effects, such as those that destroyed the original Tacoma Narrows bridge.
DISCUSSION
Discussion Questions
1. What are some of the forces that could cause a bridge to collapse?
The forces that could cause the bridge to collapse are shear and torsion, because
shear is the sliding of part of material to slide past one another in opposite
directions while the torsion is the force that can make the deck of the bridge to
twist.
2. What are the differences between concrete and reinforced concrete?
the differences between concrete and reinforced concrete are concrete is very
cheap and strong in compression but reinforced concrete has low cost,but it was
strong in compression and tension because concrete is weak in
[Link],the concrete will crack with changes in temperature,while the
reinforced concrete will crack when it is cools and hardens.
3. Which of the following shapes would be best able to handle pressure from the
top: horizontal rectangle, arch, or triangle? Why? Which would be the weakest?
From the three shapes,triangle will be the best shapes that able to handle pressure
from the top it is because when the force are given from the top it will separate the
force equally to each side of the part of the triangle and will experiences only one
force at a [Link] weakest shape is rectangle.
4. If you were developing a list of safety measure for bridges, what items would
you include on your list? Why?
CONCLUSION
THE BEST SKETCH OF A BRIDGE
Above are showing the best shape of a bridge if we want to build a bridge. The top cable are
using the shape triangle because the triangle shape can withstand many forces, and from all
shapes it is the most stable when have force from the top of it. The deck is using rectangle
with the support from bottom of the shape arch. The support are using arch because arch will
just bend when given force from top of it,but if we add some support at the sides of the arch,it
will not bend because the support at each sides will push the each side of the arch and the top
of the arch will not bend.
While other, the material that will be using to make this bridge are such reinforced concrete,
aluminium, steel and iron because this four types of materials is the most strong materials.
However between this four materials, steel is the strongest.
REFERENCES
INTERNET
1. [Link]
2. [Link]
3. [Link]
4. Wikipedia
TEXT BOOKS
1. PHYSICS BOOKS
APPENDICES