tallbridgeguy

Chicago is busy, loud, and full of architecture. I am hoping I can see one of the bascule bridges opening up but I think they only do that on special occasions. More pics to come.

You probably noticed by now that I spend a look of time looking at projects other than ABC bridges and today is no different.

I saw this video on boingboing.net about a music composer who made a video using Google Sketchup. (I can see this technique being used to promote your bridge design to the public.) Here is a link to an interview with the video director. (sorry about the ads)

I also love the DIY movement and I think this aero-civic design is amazing.There is a lot of engineering behind the $400 in parts.

Watch the video “how to architect” and your reaction will likely determine if your an engineer or not.

Its Friday! Ever have one of those weeks….well as the title of the post suggests, odds and ends today.

• ABC Posts – If you have some bridge related information or project news you would like to promote, please email me the material at “nielsen at acceleratedbridgeconstruction dot com” (hopefully that fools the spammers but I still seem to get a lot of spam from Russia)
• If I link or post to your image and you are unhappy with that, I will remove it at your request. (No one has complained yet, I try to give the proper credit.)
• If you have some bridge related questions, I can give them a try. Maybe a Q&A forum, with more knowledgeable readers weighing in?

• Bridge picture blog – This is a Japanese blog (I think, I used google translator and that is the one that worked. I believe it is called “tabikappa”(?) and has been showcased on other sites. But it is fun to see the enormous variety of bridges.

I have linked to some Tri-bridges (Tridges) in the past and well, here are some more, from the Travelogue of an Armchair Traveller blog.

Image from Panoramio is by Fenton Low Altitude …

I was reading the Happy Pontist’s post about the new Calatrava bridge in Calgary. I grew up in Calgary and my family had a three acre precast concrete manufacturing factory there. I spent my early summers driving trucks, operating cranes, and mixing concrete. (We had an automatic batching facility with underground bins for the materials and a two cubic yard egg beater mixer. It was not fun cleaning inside the mixer,  I was always worried someone would turn it on..think pureed teenager)

The Calgary tower (the red bit in the picture) had a restaurant that rotated around. (Movie theaters were located near the base and I remember seeing Star Wars there!)

Our company did all the precast concrete around the new city hall building, which was remodeled for the 1988 Olympics.

But as the title suggests I wanted to write about the Calatrava bridge in Calgary and the lack of ownership for the new structure.

Its a favorite trick of politicians to build things under the radar when there is the possibility of negative feedback. Their motivation is easy to understand, what I don’t understand is Calatrava’s reluctance to stand up for his work.

Even if the city objects, I think he should speak out about the merits of his new bridge and go to Calgary for the grand opening. What is the point of building a bridge of this magnitude without some fanfare? I think if Calatrava spent some time in Calgary, making the rounds, he could address concerns and build support for the bridge. I wonder how other engineers handle this situation. Do they try to address concerns or do they take the money and hide? Maybe in this case its too late but I think he should have tried.

I downloaded a new cad program called DoubleCad this morning and I am trying it out. I typically use Bentley’s Microstation cad system but I wanted a low cost (free is best!) cad program I could use on my laptop. DoubleCad has a free version of their software that SEEMS unaffected by spyware, nagware or any other ware. It mimics autocad LT or so they say. I’m not really sure because I have not used autocad lite.

If you have some good/bad experiences with DoubleCad let me know. So far it seems interesting.

Other open source software I use/recommend.

• Google sketchup – best 3D drawing software and FREE! Every engineer should learn this software.
• Openoffice – good open source (free) excel-like, word-like, powerpoint-like software.
• Clamwin Antivirus – free virus software
• Inkscape – free Adobe Illustrator-like program
• Gimp – free Adobe photoshop program
• VLC palyer – free player of cd, mp3s, DVDs
• Camstudio- free maker of web videos
• Filezilla - free file transfer program
• Audacity – free music/sound copyer or splicer
• Kerkythea – free 3D render software
• DoubleCad – seems free cad program

Except for DoubleCad, I have used all of these programs and recommend them completely. Sure they have some quirks, but free is hard to beat.

What programs do you recommend?

Posted my summer grades this morning, summer officially begins…

I had a meeting yesterday about a little ABC project I designed. One of the new things we are trying for this bridge is a reduced construction period. In the past, our ABC projects would get the typical construction timeframe that you would receive for a standard cast-in-place bridge (about three months).

This made it difficult (to say the least) to determine how many actual days the project took to build and whether or not that achieved the ABC goals. A contractor could work a few days on the ABC project, rotate out to another project and come back a month later and finish the ABC bridge. This is not unusual, just think of how many times you saw a construction project blocking traffic and you wonder where all the workers are….

When my family manufactured precast concrete products it was often feast or famine. So we had to jump from project to project to keep everybody happy (mostly those that screamed the loudest). I can’t remember how many times we were threatened by a job superintendent. (Man, that is a rotten job)

For this latest project, we gave ten days for construction, with the incentive of a $5000/day bonus (up to a maximum of $25,000) for every day under the ten. (Meaning, install in five days, make 5 X $5000 = $25,000)

Since the timeframe is so tight everything has to work and I plan to be on site to make quick decisions if the need arises. I will post more pictures about the projects as they become available.

Update #1: The original contract cost for the bridge was just over $200,000, so $25,000 is a good incentive.

Here is what the bridge looks like….

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The blog Lines and Colors has very little to do with bridges, (except for the odd bridge painting) but it is well worth browsing if you are interested in Art.  (Hey, not everything is about bridges)

Tomorrow I am going to a local prestressing plant to discuss the manufacture of an ABC project I designed.

It should be under construction this fall and I’m hoping for five days or less to install the bridge.

One of the things you see often in bridge design is gingerbreading (GB). Essentially, adding ornamentation to a structure. (Image is from an actual gingerbread bridge competition.)

You see it a great deal of this in modern highway and pedestrian bridges. It is usually cheaper to add elements like towers, sculptures, flower boxes, paint, you name it, instead of altering the structural members.

This makes sense because 95% of bridges are pretty basic structures. (Okay I made the number up but its a lot trust me.)

Signature bridges are beautiful but they are really not the norm. A bridge designer is much more likely to work on a typical highway bridge than a Calatrava original. This goes for architects as well. Most aesthetic enhancements will come in the form of gingerbread. The challenge is to make the gingerbread appropriate for the structure. (Don’t get me wrong I would rather build an arch bridge than a bridge with GB. A “pure” structure is usually the best but you have to be realistic.)

Good details like the ornamentation of the Congress Drive bridge in Chicago adds to the structures overall appearance but it is not necessary for the structural integrity of the bridge.

(Image – Michigan Avenue Bridge. I am going to Chicago in a week and I can’t wait!)

This to me is good gingerbreading. Bad gingerbread is when you try to hide the structural elements with facades.

This structure, utilizes typical precast interior girders with variable depth spliced exterior girders. It looks like an arch but it is not. It is attractive but it is not really showing you have the elements carry the loads.

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