Date of Award

6-9-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2016.

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Tracy Abbott

Abstract

For the 2016 Senior Design project, our team elected to design and construct a short-span pedestrian bridge for the 24th National Timber Bridge Design Competition. The competition was sponsored by the Southwest Mississippi RC&D council (SMRCD) of the Forest Products Society in association with the American Society of Civil Engineers. There were a number of different design and testing requirements to abide by, including both competition regulations as well as AASHTO guidelines pertaining to the construction of pedestrian bridges. [1] A great deal of diligence was taken to assure that our team performed well in the competition; every rule and regulation was carefully considered and designed to. [5] Throughout the course of this project our team was exposed to many aspects of a structural engineering project: an iterative design process, procurement coordination, and construction.

The bridge performed really well during testing, deflecting a mere 7.58m, which was only about 73% of the allowed deflection of 0.42”. This performance, along with other bridge characteristics, lead to the team placing 1st nationally in the competition. Furthermore, in order to contribute to the development of our surrounding community, we worked extensively with the Santa Clara County Parks to arrange a donation. Our hopes are to one-day encounter our finished product in a local park.

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