Cog
Mechanical
- Mar 31, 2001
- 2
A freind of mine recently asked me to build him a foot bridge at his acreage. I'm a Gear, so I don't really know the first thing about it. I guess people just assume that as engineers we can do anything and everything. Anyways, it sounded like fun, so I took him up on the offer.
Here's the design parameters and environmental constraints:
- Needs to span a creek approx. 25 feet wide with up to 2 feet of fairly fast water flowing under it
- Creek bed is composed mainly of rock, with clay/sand banks
- Needs to be a low impact structure, easily removed if needs be
- Lastly, out of economic concerns, the brigde will be built with locally harvested logs (timber bridge).
Perhaps due to my lack of expertise, my first instinct was to just flop a big tree across the creek and call it a day. Simple, at least. But my freind wishes something more elegant.
So this is where I need some help from you guys. What kind of bridge should we build, and how do we do it? And is there anywhere I can get info on this sort of thing? Big questions, I know, but any help is appreciated.
Thanks for all your help,
Greg.
Here's the design parameters and environmental constraints:
- Needs to span a creek approx. 25 feet wide with up to 2 feet of fairly fast water flowing under it
- Creek bed is composed mainly of rock, with clay/sand banks
- Needs to be a low impact structure, easily removed if needs be
- Lastly, out of economic concerns, the brigde will be built with locally harvested logs (timber bridge).
Perhaps due to my lack of expertise, my first instinct was to just flop a big tree across the creek and call it a day. Simple, at least. But my freind wishes something more elegant.
So this is where I need some help from you guys. What kind of bridge should we build, and how do we do it? And is there anywhere I can get info on this sort of thing? Big questions, I know, but any help is appreciated.
Thanks for all your help,
Greg.