Engineers move 1,100 foot, 6.8 million pound bridge… all in one piece [Video]
January 21, 2013 7
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Let’s say you have a long, heavy bridge that is old and deteriorating in condition. This bridge is critical to the area. What do you do to fix the issue? This is the exact situation the engineers at Oregon’s Multnomah County faced. What did they decide? To move the bridge (Sellwood Bridge) and use a temporary detour bridge while a new bridge was being built.
So, this past Saturday engineers took roughly twelve hours to move the ‘truss span’ of the bridge a grand total of 68 feet north to make room for the temporary detour bridge. The bridge itself is 1,971 ft long but the truss span is 1,100 feet long and 6.8 million pounds. The miraculous part of the move is the truss span was moved all in one piece — it wasn’t broken apart first. Check it out:
[via Sellwood Bridge, OregonLive]
About the author: Ashraf View all posts by Ashraf
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Aren’t engineers great and unsung folks? Forget the lawyers–give me an engineer any day.
@Mike: How about the ones that does not-so-great things, such as weapons? Just sayin’ — hard to generalize.
A bridge truss span that is 1,100 feet long weighing only 6.8 million pounds?
@Ashraf: Unfortunately (and off-track), weapons sometimes still are necessary . . . .
@KC4COP: Is that bad? I’m not an engineer LOL!
@Mike: Some would argue so are lawyers. See what I’m saying? :-)
@Ashraf: Lawyers definitely are necessary. But think how much better the world would be, if more people by default became creators like engineers . . . .
@Mike: My guess? Less laws, worst medical care, and a world filled with R2-D2 ;-)