Steel Bridge Competition Part 2: Design and fabrication

Once you know if you are ready for the project, here are the steps you'll go through to be able to attend the competition. This is the best part if you are in civil engineering with love and willing to take the responsibility of work load a long with course work.

   1. Read the rules very carefully

Even though this is the very first step, you will have to re-read the rules at every single step. The main categories in all those competitions are lightness, stiffness, display and construction speed. The one I participated had equal importance in overall points.

   2. Fundamental design

This is very basic. You just have to read the competition rules and choose a basic design. If the rules allow you, you can add some aesthetics to your bridge. But you have to be very careful on the weight/ stiffness ratio. By this I mean if the extra weight you are adding to your system is contributing as much to your stiffness. In this step, simple drawing in AutoCAD will be enough to move forward.

   3.    Structural analysis

For the analysis part of the bridge SAP 2000 was used in Celal Bayar University and Texas A&M University. It is necessary to have some technical knowledge at this point to be able to judge results from the analysis. My masters supervisor always said it will give you a number but if the answer to "what's my age?" is 1578 then you will need to be able to know something in input or analysis assumption is wrong. Some designs as curvy designs cannot be directly modeled and a sketch in Autocad needs to be imported. A lesson learned the hard way: these shapes are also hard to fabricate. Below are a few pictures from AutoCAD, Sap 2000 and Tekla modelling screenshots of the bridge my team designed.

Drawing in AutoCAD

Analysis model in Sap 2000

Model drawn in Tekla Structures

   4. Shop drawings

This is important if you'll get the help of some workers at this point and it is necessary for the construction part. Depending on the competition you apply, the committee might also ask you to submit these.

   5. Fabrication

This is the step you'll see your project come alive. You will face many problems which will include you to go to back to analysis and drafting steps again. Even though this process is very challenging this will give you a very solid understanding of what real experience is. The way you'll look at things will change and you will learn to think about problems that could be faced ahead of time. Below are a few pictures of my team during the construction phase at a steel firm.