Building (Steel) Bridges Fast

The task: in this annual contest, student teams design a 20-foot scale model of a bridge that meets specifications. The work ranges from fabricating steel pieces to assembling them at top speed during the competition. The rules reflect the safety needs and landscape characteristics of an actual site. Bridges must take a 2,500-pound load without sagging. Months of planning and practice go into the project—and MIT does well.

In fact, the MIT Steel Bridge Team, sponsored by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, placed second at the 2012 National Steel Bridge Competition, out-engineering 45 other teams that had been winnowed from 200 in regional contests. UC Berkeley took first place at the event, held Memorial Day weekend at Clemson University.

According to a department article:

This year’s scenario called for a cantilevered bridge (one end of the structure must extend beyond the supports) to span the imaginary Phantom River, providing access to a new recreational lodge. The rules emphasized the importance of a lightweight bridge, and also restricted each builder — the 12-member MIT team had four — to a small area of the site. The restriction on movement made it more difficult to minimize builders’ downtime, a change that worked in MIT’s favor.

“I knew the restrictions on the builders’ ability to move around the bridge was good news for us, because the MIT team has always been able to come up with efficient construction sequences very quickly. This gives us an edge over some of our competitors,” says Pierre Ghisbain, a doctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) who served as mentor to the undergraduate team. Ghisbain’s research is in earthquake engineering and the optimization of structures.

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