Tucker Bedard

2/1/15
Dr. Leighton
Bridge Analysis
A.

This picture depicts the bridge as a whole, and shows the pylons, where I believe
the weakest part of the bridge is, and where I believe the bridge will fail.

This picture similarly shows the entire bridge, however, it is taken after the bridge
was tested. The decking and trusses are mainly intact, except for one break in the
upper beam of the truss shown by the red arrow. This break would have been
caused by tension, however it is not responsible for the catastrophic failure of the
bridge. The true failure was in the pylons as expected, which crumpled under
compression, leaving jagged edges on the bundles of spaghetti as they could no
longer withstand the pressure pushing them together.

I originally thought that the tension that this central truss connection would be
under during testing would result in the splitting of the truss from the deck of the
bridge, but it ended up staying intact, which was very surprising to me as it was the
position on the bridge under the most tension.

Depicted in this picture is the failure of the pylons, showing the splintered spaghetti,
and the bridge falling as its supports faltered.

Here is shown the same pylon as above, however, this picture is taken before the
testing showing its lacking support braces to deal with the intense compressional
force that it was placed under.

Once again the pylon failed on this side as well, not able to withstand the
compressional force acting upon it.
C. The bridge failed overall under compression, as the pilings were the only part
that broke, and were under compression which is why the edges of them were
very jagged and the upper parts were next to the lower parts as they had been
forced down with the stress of compression. Only one part of the bridge broke
under tension, and while in the real world it would need to be immediately

repaired, it would not be responsible for the failure of the bridge. If the bridge
had stronger supports, then it could have held much more weight.
D. The cross sectional area of the members that failed was half a centimeter in
diameter. This means that the area of the circle making up the support was
about .2cm2. This is a very small area for such enormous pressure to be put on,
even if there were 4 supports on either side. I believe that these supports
together were responsible for carrying about half of the force, so divided by 8,
the force each was supporting before breaking was about 3lbs. This is an
extraordinary request of simply spaghetti hot glued together, and I find it
amazing that it was able to hold this much weight. They had the most pressure
on them, as they were the ones which were holding the bridge above the board,
which is why they were first to break.
E. To improve my bridge I would simply add more supports to the pylons,
perhaps add more diagonal cross pieces to each set of supports as well as
adding lasagna to the outside of each one.