Technical Description

Jeremy Zhu

The Masterpieces in Civil Engineering: Brooklyn Bridge

Technical Description of the Brooklyn Bridge

 The introduction of the Brooklyn Bridge:

• The Brooklyn Bridge is a world-famous suspension bridge, which locates in New York. It was completed with a total length of 1834m by Roebling family in 1883.
• The Brooklyn Bridge is a great importance in the history of the bridges, which is known as the representative civil construction of the third generation of the suspension bridge.  
• John Augustus Roebling and his son Washington Roebling were the chief civil engineers who’re in charge of building the Brooklyn Bridge.                                                                                                                                  Figure 1: The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge.USA Today, www.usatoday.com

The Structure of the Brooklyn Bridge:

• The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the first where steel was used in the deck’s resistant structure. The steel wires were also first used in the construction and were constructed by the technology named “Aerial Spinning Method.”
• The center of the bridge spans 486m, it has two towers and three spans, the first two spans were made by granite and mixed with concrete. There was a big sacrifice behind the caisson boxes and finished erection of the towers, which 160 feet under the water                                                                             Figure 2: The steel structure of the Brooklyn Bridge. Holth, N.Structure of                                                                                                                                                                                                                  the Brooklyn Bridge https://historicbridges.org

• The superstructure of this bridge has six driveways and one level up is the walkway for people which made by anti-corrosion woods, and also there is steel made handrail to enhance the safety of the tourists.
• A great join is that the bridge also included subway tracks from Manhattan to Brooklyn at the years starting from 1944, thereby it indirectly facilitating the traffic system in New York City. The bridge is one of the earliest bridge to include the motorway, subway tracks, sidewalks, and the bicycle lanes.

Caisson Box Method:

This is caisson box, “a watertight box opens at the top and floated over a position prepared by dredging and sunk by building a bridge pier within it.” People who’re working in this environment have a chance to suffer from decompression sickness, also known as bends. “The bubbles occur if you move from deep water towards the surface (where the surrounding pressure is lower) in too short a space of time.” The chief engineer Washington. Roebling was suffering from this disease during the process.

Figure 4: Caisson Box. (n.d.). Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisson_(engineering) (Originally photographed 2012, March)

 

The Status of the Brooklyn Bridge:

The Brooklyn Bridge connects with the island of Manhattan, and the bridge crosses the East River. As a remarkable landmark, the Bridge Bridge has also become a representative building in New York since the Statue of Liberty. Nowadays, the Brooklyn Bridge is considered one of the seven epoch-making architectural engineering miracle in the world, its magnificence is known to the world.

Work Cites:

Brooklyn Bridge. (2018, November 25). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Bridge

Box Caisson. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/box caisson

McNamara, R., McNamara, R. J., & Amazon.com. (n.d.). The Impossible Accomplished: Building the Brooklyn Bridge. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/building-the-brooklyn-bridge-1773695