Beautiful Bridges

This is a collection of a few of my favorite pictures of bridges. Cool, huh?

The tallest bridge

This is a panoramic view of the Millau Bridge (formally known as le Viaduc de Millau), the tallest vehicular bridge in the world. Opened in December 2004, the Millau Bridge spans the Tarn River valley in southern France and carries motorists for a 1.6-mile stretch through the Massif Central mountains at a height of 891 feet. The steel-and-concrete bridge is visually distinctive for its streamlined diagonal suspension cables resting on seven pillars, the tallest pillar soaring 1,122 feet high, making it slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower and just a bit shorter than the Empire State Building.

Slicing a bridge in half with a hoe?

A hoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas. The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, reinforced with 1 1/2 inch steel rebar spaced at 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot vertical spacing. Here's a question for you: When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half? (Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by the driver.) Extra Credit: Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above. The accident forced an 11-day closure of the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70. (The bridge itself remained closed even after the highway reopened.) The driver of the rig was uninjured, although he was later cited for not having clearance to drive on the interstate. The Kansas Department of Transportation said the construction company for which the driver worked would be liable for the cost of repairs to the overpass, which were estimated at $134,000 as of late March 2006.

This looks interesting...

It's a picture of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. That's right, it's a bridge and and it's a tunnel. This unusual structure, which connects two Virginia communities across the mouth of the James River, opened in April 1992 after seven years of construction and a total cost of about $400 million. It is 4,800 feet long from portal to . portal

The Bridge

Is this cool or what?