TABLE OF CONTENTS Thomas A.Ostrom
Chief
Office of Structures-North
California Department of Transportation
Sacramento, California
Steven L.Mellon
Senior Bridge Design Engineer
Quincy Engineering, Inc.
Sacramento, California
Bridge engineering covers the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of structures that carry facilities for movement of humans, animals, or materials over natural or created obstacles.
Most of the diagrams used in this section were taken from the Manual of Bridge Design Practice, State of California Department of Transportation and Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The authors express their appreciation for permission to use these illustrations from this comprehensive and authoritative publication.
Bridges are of two general types: fixed and movable. They also can be grouped according to the following characteristics:
Supported facilities: Highway or railway bridges and viaducts, canal bridges and aqueducts, pedestrian or cattle crossings, material-handling bridges, pipeline bridges.
Bridge-over facilities or natural features: Bridges over highways and over railways; river bridges; bay, lake, slough and valley crossings.
Basic geometry: In plan straight or curved, square or skewed bridges; in elevation low-level bridges, including causeways and trestles, or highlevel bridges.
Structural systems: Single-span or continuousbeam bridges, single- or multiple-arch bridges, suspension bridges, frame-type bridges.
Construction materials: Timber, masonry, concrete, and steel bridges.
Designs of highway and railway bridges of concrete or steel often are based on the latest editions of the Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges or the Load and Resistance Factor Design...
