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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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..great, something i can stand on and pee my pants lookin off of...
im scared of heights, you insensitive clod!
Now that's one way to take over a seanic vista! I can't really tell from the photo, but that must have been one great view from up the valley. The constuction site has some good photos, but the server will die soon.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I've never bungee jumped before, but that pic sure made me think about it. Damn! But I'm scared of heights...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Yes, I was on the news this afternoon overhere (Netherlands). It's higher than the Eifel tower (Paris, France)
Are these the same people who built the new terminal at Charles De Gaulle?
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.
That sure is some bridge, but must be a real eyesore to those who have to live near it.
They get serious flooding in that valley.
Double Compile
I can't wait until we get news of the first suicide jumper from that bridge. Hopefully someone will catch it on video. Talk about "news that hurts"!
High bridges freak me out. Where I live, we have a lot of bridges - even just downtown (over the Willamette River). The Burnside Bridge is fine. It's very wide and low. But then we have bridges like the Freemont which are very high suspension bridges that make my heart catch in my throat.
I'm not even normally afraid of hights... but stick me in a car with a thousand other cars on the bridge and I get vertigo.
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??
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
(See subject.)
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
..I can just see the headlines. "World's tallest bridge collapses! Engineers: 'What were we thinking?'"
Get your bungie jumping ropes and take a plane to france!!!
Just make sure you don't land at the new International Terminal. That would be dangerous
Does it run Linux?
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.
It does appear there is a perfectly good valley where you could run a road much cheaper.
My guess, it appears they wanted to keep a central theme all the way along the roadway as this portion connects to a section crossing a river.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Well, in fact, they are the same folks... 2E airport terminal was built by Vinci and Eiffage. Millau viaduc is built by Eiffage alone.
What if that thing tilts? :-o
russia to the tip of alaska might be doable.. at the closest point, russia and alaska are 3 miles apart
'course, that's an island to an island, but still...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I see a lot of white knuckled drivers going over this bridge. Imagine driving over it in bad weather, the wind pushing your car around. *shivers*
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Is there an engineering reason for it being this tall?
Because heights are the only thing the French aren't afraid of.
There's probably a sign before you drive onto the bridge that reads: "World's tallest bridge! World's highest toll!"
Double Compile
Because some moderators forget change their personal settings when they have mod points, and dig below 1.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
http://www.engineergirl.org/nae/cwe/egmain.nsf/(we blinks)/ESER-5JBKQD?opendocument
This URL indicates that the Royal Gorge bridge,
outside Canon City, Colorado, USA is
higher than the one mentioned
-- We have been doing so much with so little for so long, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
From the project site: "As a truly emblematic signature of the town whose name it carries, it will, just by its very existence, lead to economic and cultural growth."
Is it just me, or does completely bypassing a town actually hurt its economic and cultural growth?
and... building a huge bridge with a bunch of supports in the valley... solves this how?
Let's hope that Vinci is the chintzy and fewer corners were cut on the bridge then.
And if not, look at it this way, you have a better chance of flying off their bridge than out of their airport.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Maybe it's a suspension vs. non-suspension thing.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
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.
I mean, did they even bother to future-proof this thing so that when we reach the age of 300m high boats that it won't have to be torn down?
The height of the road surface above the water or ground below is what counts, not the fru-fru above the road surface.
o ya l.html
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
Are we looking at yet another awe inspiring structure to be on a terrorists list of possible targets? Or maybe France has disagreed with the US to somewhat "shield" them from the threat?
Sorry but last I checked the Royal Gorge Bridge (in Colorado, USA) is still higher. Built in 1929 too.
1053 feet. Roughly 320.95 meters. Or 50 meters higher.
info here
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
Major writeup of the project:
http://www.a75.com/viaducengl.html
How long until the first one takes a shot at this structure?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
So now the US Navy pilots have a slalom course in Europe. Sweet!
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
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?
Darwin Awards!
This will have the benefits of not causing noise pollution (I doubt the noise will reach ground level), and not cutting the town in two (as the supports are quite far apart).
... better than their server.
Possibly built by the same people that did the terminal that just collapsed at CDG in Paris?
(This sig has been removed at the request of the patent holder for Sigs.)
A Frenchman from Millau recently tossed his hat in for the Summar 2004 Darwin Awards competition. Breaking ranks with the other contestents, the 25 year old amateur bungee jumper announced his entry pre-mortem along with his decision to resign from a janitorial/IT position at Eiffage, a French construction group, to pursue his hobby for a living.
Rumors abound, but no details were available about his upcoming performance.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
The bridge should be set now.
Bridges with a cantilever / segmental type of construction typically see the highest stresses during construction, before everything is locked together. Since they _just_ locked it together, it's probably ok.
I think I need a new sig here.
at the closest point, russia and alaska are 3 miles apart
not even close. The shortest distance between mainland russia and mainland alaska is 55 miles.
I think you're mistakenly thinking of the Diomede islands, which are much closer together, however they are about 100 miles from shore in either direction and there aren't any cars there anyway, so a bridge wouldn't help you much.
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.
Dude! We need to build a bridge to the moon then. Lots of up-front costs, but once it's in we could drive there anytime we want.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
At around $5.50 US (depending on the exchange rate from Euros) a crossing, it's just a bit more than half as expensive as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel's $10 US one-way charge for a passanger car.
in light of the recent collapse at the Charles de Gaulle airport in france, I'm not gonna risk my butt being the first to across it. I'll wait at least 2 years after completion (the airport collapsed less than 2 yrs after its completion).
If its a deep valley, and their are already two connecting roads, then going down the side of the vally and up the other side of the valey could add a great deal of mileage to the drive, uphill and downhill.
So there would be a lot of people who do break work who are angry, and a lot of people who rely on the high gas usage of climbing the side of a valley who are very angry about the bridge im sure (or they should be after they start losing business).
The bridge is saving road mileage.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
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.
You can see some more pictures of this project, along with some of the artist renderings of what the thing will look like when done, here.
I thought this meritted a search on Ixquick Metasearch http://www.ixquick.com
Here are my choice results on the Millau Viaduct or Bridge depending on what report you read.
http://www.bridgepros.com/projects/Millau_Viadu
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3237329
http://www.viaducdemillaueiffage.com/
N.B. This site is in heavy demand so by all means make a note of the URL to try another time / at a later date.
http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headline
http://www.enerpac.com/html/press_releases/Beri
Interesting to note that Sir Norman Foster was involved in this. For more info on his work try: http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Norman_F
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
I guess the hotshot Navy pilots will have to stick with cutting cables of mountain trams in Italy.
Sooo close. You got the implied reference but seem to have missed the joke....
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Bragging? Hardly. Remember, it was designed by ENGLISH architech Lord Norman Foster.
Well, yeah, but doesn't the architect just decide what colour it's going to be? The important part of the work is done by engineers. I don't think the site says whether they're french or English, but I would expect a firm named after France's most famous structural engineer to be French.
The length of this bridge is quite impressive. The longest suspension bridge on record is the Dames Point (Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge)in Jacksonville Florida that is about 2 miles long. It's span consisting of cables is only about 1/3 of the overall length (not sure how the whole bridge is considered suspension). This one apeears to be roughly 60% of the length of the Dames Point but is suspended cables the whole length. Seeing the Dames Point on a quite regular basis, I must say that one is very impressive.
Just for height comparisons, the Dames Point is about 425 feet (130m) high with the highest point over water being 175 feet (about 54m). Quite an accomplishment considering what it took to build this little thing.
That's true. But the French are masters of deception. For example, the Maginot Line could not really be a defensive bulwark against Germany since Hitler could so obviously just drive around it. It was actually a party crib for the militizzle nizzles. A thousand mile long tube, it was the quintessential "penis boast".
Similarly this is not really a bridge. It is a French Terrorism Honeypot. It is just screaming to be blown up by one of those Arab terrorist cells and when they do... the french police will have it all on videotape and will put their top man on it, Inspector Clouseau. I wouldn't want to be one of those terrorists. I can tell you that.
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.
I wonder how long before this bridge features in a TdF stage. I'm sure it'll look awesome with a peloton going along it and will figure into several pictures by Graham Watson.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What would be so funny about that?
A spectacular crash has just accured on the newly opened Millau bridge. Witnesses report that a small car collided with a truck causing the car to flip over the side rail. The driver of the car was seen climbing out of the falling car...
--The best thing about working at home... Homebrew!
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
From here:
The bridge has the optimum span between cable-stayed columns. It is delicate, transparent, and uses the minimum material, which makes it less costly to construct.
Why does this talk of "delicate" bridges not have me rushing to cross it? I realise there's more than one definition of the word delicate, but still.
Can you say "five miles per hour"!
I think I peed my pants when I saw that picture.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in /home/millau/public_html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mys ql.inc.php on line 170
mysql://millau1_us:@localhost/millau1_db failed to connectToo many connections
Better post this as funny :)
There was another way: Yellow... A human problem, a human solution.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
They grow a very sweet and tasty onion down in south georgia, around the town of "vidalia" hence the onions of that name. You can use the same seed, grown elsewhere, but it is illegal to call it a "vidalia" for sales purposes.
just a FWIW
good stuff, BTW, yummy
Start Running Better Polls
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but in the chance you aren't, you'd want the cord to be shorter than the fall.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
labotomy
.sig.
Hmm. a labotomy might be a lip removal of some sort.. however, you may want to respell that as 'lobotomy' in your
To hangout for some time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3759307.stm
This article is a bit different (more up-to-date) than the only other BBC article I've seen anyone post here.
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
"No Fishing From Bridge"
(seriously!)
It may be a flat valley, but the drop-offs into the valley are quite steep.
Thanks to another poster above, check out this page, particularly the photo right at the bottom. You can see how difficult it would be to get an expressway down into the valley and then back up. The page also shows the various options considered, as well as the reasons for accepting the tall viaduct.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
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:[.]
Two weeks before some smelly frenchman BASE jumps this thing.
A year before a section mysteriously falls, killing a couple from Prague, a travelling salesman from China, and several grazing sheep.
...but they missed the perfect opportunity to build the "world's tallest cloverleaf interchange".
I'm really curious where this stereotype of French surrenders comes from?
I'd like to see a list of the surrenders that have given them the reputation.
I find it strange that people in a country with only a few hundred years of history, who have never seen an invading army on their shores seem to think it's appropriate to critise a country with thousands of years of history involving hundreds of wars for deciding that living to fight another day is a better option a couple of times.
Advanced users are users too!
The Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado is 1053 feet off the deck. How are they measuring the Millau bridge to be a record breaker?
non sig - My slashdot UID sux but my Slashnot.com UID is in the 100's.
No. It was paid for independently and they have the rights to charge people for crossing it for 75 years. I think 75 years is a little much but it wasn't your tax money paying for it.
It's not cheap to cross, either. But, you always have the option of going the old way, if you want to save the money.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The local neighbors are like, 400 feet below the bridge.
I don't think noise will be a big issue, certianly less then living near an expressway.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Looks like a great place for a game of FROG DROP. 1. Take a number of disguntled frogs and carry them onto center span of bridge 2. Drop frogs over side! SPLAT less frogs in the world! SWEET!!!!
--"It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics."--
no fucking way I'm ever going on that thing...
It sorta reminds me of the train bridge that passes Champion's home in Triplets of Belleville.
Jory
France paid $29.5B in 2002, while the US paid $399B. Who's safer?
--
make install -not war
Yeah... a bit shorter. Remember, bungee cords stretch :o).
We want their cooperation. We don't want your fearmongering. Go back to mommy and tell her you love her. She'll tell you everything will be OK. Meanwhile, let the adults talk to the foreigners - you're just making things worse.
For the adults, I remind you that the Spanish people threw out their corrupt government after Al Qaeda bombed the Madrid train, and that corrupt government blamed their favorite targets, the Basque, to justify an unprovoked invasion of the Basque country. The Spaniards refused to let their corrupt government (which was the first, and one of the few, in Europe to follow Bush into Iraq) copy Bush's criminal strategy of using an Al Qaeda attack to trick his people into attacking his personal target (in Iraq) instead of Al Qaeda. The Al Qaeda bombs went off a few days before the Spanish election, the incumbent government lied about it being Basque, then right before the election the truth easily came out. The Spaniards threw out their corrupt government, and installed the government which promised to get out from under the Iraq fraud. And switch over to pursuing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, where they have recovered while Bush has been busy losing the war in Iraq. If we're truly free in America, we *will* follow the Spanish lead: fire Bush, stop the atrocious abuse of Iraq, and just get Al Qaeda, instead of this insane, lying escalation that only threatens what little global stability has survived the onslaught of Bush and his legions of zombies, which include the Anonymous asshole Coward to which this message replies.
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make install -not war
Al Qaeda attacked America both because of our government's attacks on foreign coutries in the last 50 (really 200) years, and because our people believe in freedom and democracy. All those abuses you cited are accurate, but incomplete: Americans have also supported the terrorist Arafat for too long, as well as his soulmate, Sharon. Note that the US government covers its murderous tracks to keep the American people ignorant of how its government acts against its interests, values and will whenever it can get away with it, and sometimes when it can't quite. We all do well to note that engaging American people and calmly educating them is a good way to protect all of us from its government.
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make install -not war
Hell yeah. Full time listener. Nice to meet you. :)
Here!
Silence Bossy Meat Creatures!
One time in basic training we were marching along and we came to a bridge, where we were told to stop marching in step. They said it would cause the bridge to collapse. I thought it was BS until I read about this.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska
However, they had a bigger army than the Germans, plus higher quality, more numerous tanks. They simply didn't fight as well as the Germans, both at the command level and the individual soldier level.
The BBC has a very good online coverage with 5 impressive pictures.
Link follows: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3759307.stm
The Germans can't call their sparkling whites Champagne due to the Treaty of Versailles. Article.
He probably thinks it'd be funny because he's american and has small penis syndrome, he like a lot of americans can't be happy if another country is better than them or is right when they're wrong.
I wonder if Bin Laden thought this, "Hey, why don't we attack America. If they then turned to be the next Soviet Russia, Ha Ha! Wouldn't that be hilarious!"
The grand-parent poster can go suck Dubya's dick, the rest of you, go mod me down.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
The poster raises an interesting question (without actually stating it explicitly), since pillar width determines lateral stability.
The engineer in me would want to provide such a high bridge with a huge safety margin in lateral stability by adding pillar support stays perpendicular to the bridge span. It's not just for sheer massive bolstering either, but can be used as part of a frequency-tuned sway damping system.
I sure hope that they over-spec'ed the pillar widths to provide distributed lateral bolstering. Bridges have been known to collapse in adverse conditions.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Thx for that info! 5'10" is close enough. I'll brb & let you know how it went...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Thanks Al Qaeda for your help against software oppression!
nt
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Agreed, people really need to learn to use sarcasm tags when posting to sites frequented by Americans.
I don't think this feature is specific to Americans. It's rather typical to techno-geeks, who spend way too much time in front of a computer, and way to little in a real life scenarios. Sarcasm skills are picked up through "live" contacts by watching face expressions, tone fluctuations, etc. In front of a computer things have a tendency to look kind of dry, and things are taken very literally quite often.
The purpose of life is to find the purpose of life.
What the hell are you thanking Al Qaeda for? Thank the Spanish Socialist government. Thank the Spaniards for dumping a rightwing government that would have supported mandatory profit. Or even thank the dumped rightwing government, which was stupid enough to try to bushit their constituents with phony Basque blame for the Al Qaeda attack. But thank Al Qaeda for its vile role in replacing the Spanish government with one that is switching its military from the non-Qaeda Iraqmire to attack their Afghani playground in the Pakistani foothills? Do you thank the fire that burns your house for the firemen who saved you? Come on over here to NYC, and try thanking Al Qaeda for the spiffy new subway station where the World Trade Center used to be. And I'll kick your ass.
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make install -not war
No, Tacoma Narrows is a suspension bridge, which is not constructed in a cantilever fashion. Apples and oranges for construction method.
For a suspension bridge, the cables are strung and deck sections are then lifted - no free cantilevers anywhere.
For the cantilever bridge that failed, try the Quebec bridge.
I think I need a new sig here.
I wonder how they're going to take care of bridge breakdowns or worse... accidents. It not only looks tall, but long. one breakdown/accident and not only are you stuck, you're stuck and you can't get off. ambulances are gonna have a tough time getting through. etc.
but hey, you know what? this goes pretty well with a recent story.
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through