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Highest Bridge in the World Nearing Completion
An anonymous reader writes "A weekend cookie for all engineering geeks out here. The central span of the Millau bridge (270 meters or 886 ft) has been completed!" The photo is awesome.
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Yes, I was on the news this afternoon overhere (Netherlands). It's higher than the Eifel tower (Paris, France)
I wonder how wide those pylons are? They look like they are a decent width, but of course it's tough to tell with that perspective.
Why did they build this bridge? That looks like a perfectly nice valley down there, easy to push a road through, and at 1/100th the cost and no where near the danger.
Is this a penis boast ("I've got the biggest bridge!"), an environment issue ("No automobiles in this valley!"), an ownership issue, what??
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I drove through Millau a few weeks ago, and it is one mother-hubbard of a bridge. I didn't know it was the tallest. Millau is a really bad bottleneck and the existing road is strangled by the lorries which must use it.
Yes it does rather look "stuck-on" to the scenery. I'm not sure why they couldn't just build a by-pass folowing the contours rather than the whopping bridge. That's my tax money paying for that.
What's the use of having a bridge that is that high? Just seems like a serious waste of resources just for bragging rights.
It advances the state of engineering and materials science, by testing structures that would otherwise never have been built.
Think of it as like going to the moon, with fewer scientific benefits but less waste to match.
What if that thing tilts? :-o
What's the use of having a bridge that is that high? Just seems like a serious waste of resources just for bragging rights.
Bragging? Hardly. Remember, it was designed by ENGLISH architech Lord Norman Foster. The French can't really brag about the thing. If anything, it's likely many French citizens are ashamed that the French weren't able to design it themselves. History has shown that national pride and xenophobia have traditionally been much stronger among the French than most other Western-European countries; sadly, this bridge will probably be one of the first things destroyed when the next French Revolution comes.
The height of the road surface above the water or ground below is what counts, not the fru-fru above the road surface.
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This old 1929 bridge in Colorado still has the Fench bridge beat, as do a few others.
http://www.micron.com/k12/lessonplans/bridges/r
Having lived in Colorado, I would like to point out this bit of information. I guess it would depend on how the bridge is measured.
Since it looks like the site is Slashdotted, I can't see all of the info. If you judge by the main span, then it looks like this new bridge may have it (886 ft compared to 880 ft). However, the Royal Gorge Bridge is 1053 ft above the Arkansas river that passes underneath it (No threat of flooding...knocks on wood).
My guess is figuring out the world's highest bridge is something akin to figuring out the world's tallest building...different opinions yeild different results. Anyway, Royal Gorge only claims the "Wolrd's Highest Suspension Bridge".
Yeah, I know... shoulda RTFA
How long until the first one takes a shot at this structure?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Road Traffic Tech.com
They are charging about $6 per car for crossing the viaduct. If enough cars are willing to pay this rather than crawling through the valley that it pays for the project (which wasn't actually that expensive, compare USD $400 million with what some bridges over water cost) then it makes economic sense to build it. What else is needed?
I've been at Milau last summer, and I must say that bridge is quite spectacular, also the way it was built. During the dozen days I was there, you could see the daily progress they made as the cranes moved and the whole bridge was pushed across the pillars little by little. Amazing bridgebuilding technology, really.
And maybe it's not evident from the pictures, but the bridge does make some sense when you look at the landscape close-up.
And it's really big. Standing under the pillars makes it look very, very intimidating.
If you look at the picture, it looks as if there's a bit of a dip from where the camera is to the next span.
Did they screw up the alignment a bit then hack it to get it to work? How do they do that anyway?
The road (bridges) through the Florida Keys is pretty impressive as far as length. It's not entirely a single span but overall it has that effect.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
at the New River Gorge bridge in West Virginia, USA. It's legal to jump off that bridge exactly one day per year (known, appropriately enough, as bridge day). It's not a bad way to introduce yourself to base jumping legally... jail time sucks.
Incidently, it's only ten feet shorter than the bridge mentioned in the article (but has a much smaller landing area... people jumping the New River Gorge bridge should have good canopy control skills... it might be tough for a rookie parachutist). The only more-difficult famous base jump landing I know of is Angel Falls... there's a tiny clearing in the jungle you have to hit, or you're in the trees.
I got invited to do my first base jump when I was a low-time skydiver (only had 13 jumps under my belt) it involved breaking-and-entering, climbing an antenna at night, jumping from said antenna, and avoiding the guy wires... needless to say, I declined. I like adrenaline as much as the next guy, but there's something to be said for living to jump another day...
Jump smart... you'll live longer.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The intensity of use of this railroad corridor, and its effect on overall economic productivity of North American and Eurasian nations, changes entirely when it crosses the Bering Strait--as is now definitely technologically feasible by tunnel (Figure 2), using the two islands, (Little Diomede and Big Diomede) which lie along the Strait crossing in order to break up its total length. The long-awaited Alaska-Canada railroad corridor then becomes an extension of the northern Eurasian Land-Bridge--involving the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur lines, and the Chinese northern rail line construction extending to them--and part of the "world land-bridge."
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Since long before I was born they have been two ten-foot-wide lanes and pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge because of the danger. Neither are trucks allowed to pass one another because there isn't enough clearance.
The nominal height of this bridge is 130 feet above the river, give or take. It's not nearly as high as the A75 but we get our share of suicide jumpers both off it and the newer, swankier, and busier Greater New Orleans Mississippi River Bridge a few miles to the south (or, as it was renamed after a contest in the 80's, the "Crescent City [not drug] Connection").
You do not get the full thrill of the Huey Long unless you're on it when a TRAIN is also on it. And you really don't get the full thrill unless you are STOPPED IN TRAFFIC while a TRAIN is passing. You see, the H.P.Long is entirely riveted together. There isn't a weld to be found in the entire structure. This means it moves -- a lot. You normally can't tell in a moving vehicle, but people have been known to get seasick in stalled traffic. Especially when a train is passing.
I'm sure the A75 will be no picnic in bad weather, but being that high in bad weather you probably won't even be able to see the ground. What I wonder about is how much the thing will move around with only seven supports and all that wind-catching area.
Being stopped on traffic might be a lot more fun than just having your car slapped around by a gale.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]