Franz Dischinger | |
---|---|
Franz Dischinger (8 October 1887 - 9 January 1953) was a pioneering German civil and structural engineer, responsible for the development of the modern cable-stayed bridge. He was also a pioneer of the use of prestressed concrete, patenting the technique of external prestressing (where the prestressing bars or tendons are not encased in the concrete) in 1934. [1]
After completing Gymnasium in Karlsruhe, Germany, Dischinger went to the Technische Hoschschule Karlsruhe (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) where he studied and received a degree in building engineering. After getting his degree in 1913, he then started working for Dyckerhoff & Widmann A.G., an engineering firm in Germany. In 1928 Dischinger went back to school to receive his doctorate at the Technische Hoschschule Dresden (now TU Dresden), Germany. [2]
In 1922, he designed the Zeiss Planetarium [3] in Jena with Walther Bauersfeld, using a thin-shell concrete roof in the shape of a hemisphere. Their system was subsequently patented, and Dischinger published a paper on the relevant mathematics in 1928. [4]
Since the previous stay and cable bridges in Dischinger's opinion were both flawed technically and disturbing looking, he decided to publish his own cable stayed bridge. [5] This design has been used ever since, more than 100 of these cable stayed bridges have been built.
For the 1938 design of a rail suspension bridge (not built), he had studied historical bridges incorporating inclined stay elements, such as those by Ferdinand Arnodin and John Roebling. He went on to design the 183 m span Strömsund Bridge [6] in Sweden, completed in 1955 and generally considered the first of the modern tradition of cable-stayed bridges, although there had been many isolated examples of the bridge form before then. This employed a steel deck and cables, with large spacings between the stays typical of the early designs. It appears in Strömsund's coat of arms. [7]
Other key works include:
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation.
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more towers, from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines. This is in contrast to the modern suspension bridge, where the cables supporting the deck are suspended vertically from the main cable, anchored at both ends of the bridge and running between the towers. The cable-stayed bridge is optimal for spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges. This is the range within which cantilever bridges would rapidly grow heavier, and suspension bridge cabling would be more costly.
Eugène Freyssinet was a French structural and civil engineer. He was the major pioneer of prestressed concrete.
A self-anchored suspension bridge is a suspension bridge type in which the main cables attach to the ends of the deck, rather than directly to the ground or via large anchorages. The design is well-suited for construction atop elevated piers, or in areas of unstable soils where anchorages would be difficult to construct.
The Alamillo Bridge is a structure in Seville, Andalucia (Spain), which spans the Canal de Alfonso XIII, allowing access to La Cartuja, a peninsula located between the canal and the Guadalquivir River. The bridge was constructed as part of infrastructure improvements for Expo 92, which was held on large banana farms on the island. Construction of the bridge began in 1989 and was completed in 1992 from a design by Santiago Calatrava.
Salginatobel Bridge is a reinforced concrete arch bridge designed by Swiss civil engineer Robert Maillart. It was constructed across an alpine ravine in the grisonian Prättigau, belonging to the municipality of Schiers, in Switzerland between 1929 and 1930. In 1991, it was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, the thirteenth such structure and the first concrete bridge so designated.
Michel Virlogeux FREng CorrFRSE is a French structural engineer and bridge specialist.
Robert Maillart was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch for bridges, and the beamless floor slab and mushroom ceiling for industrial buildings. His Salginatobel (1929–1930) and Schwandbach (1933) bridges changed the aesthetics and engineering of bridge construction dramatically and influenced decades of architects and engineers after him. In 1991 the Salginatobel Bridge was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
An extradosed bridge employs a structure that combines the main elements of both a prestressed box girder bridge and a cable-stayed bridge. The name comes from the word extrados, the exterior or upper curve of an arch, and refers to how the "stay cables" on an extradosed bridge are not considered as such in the design, but are instead treated as external prestressing tendons deviating upward from the deck. In this concept, they remain part of the main bridge superstructure.
Christian Menn was a renowned Swiss civil engineer and bridge designer. He was involved in the construction of around 100 bridges worldwide, but the focus of his work was in eastern Switzerland, especially in canton Graubünden. He continued the tradition of and had a decisive influence on Swiss bridge building. The technical and aesthetic possibilities of prestressed concrete were most fully realized with his bridges in Switzerland.
The Koror–Babeldaob Bridge is a bridge in Palau that connects Koror and Babeldaob Islands. It is a reinforced concrete, portal frame, cable-stayed bridge with a total length of 413 m. It was built by the Kajima Corporation of Japan in 2002, to replace the former bridge built by Socio Construction Co. of Korea in 1978 which collapsed in 1996.
Walther Bauersfeld was a German engineer.
Fritz Leonhardt was a German structural engineer who made major contributions to 20th-century bridge engineering, especially in the development of cable-stayed bridges. His book Bridges: Aesthetics and Design is well known throughout the bridge engineering community.
Riccardo Morandi was an Italian civil engineer best known for his innovative use of reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete, although over the years some of his particular cable-stayed bridges have had some maintenance trouble.
Ferdinand Joseph Arnodin was a French engineer and industrialist born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône who died in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire in Loiret. Specialising in cableway transporters, he is regarded as the inventor of the transporter bridge, having been the first to patent the idea in 1887. However, the first such bridge was in fact designed by Alberto Palacio, with Arnodin's help.
The Strömsund Bridge is a cable-stayed road bridge, bringing road E45 over Ströms vattudal, in Strömsund, Jämtland, Sweden.
Manfred Curbach is a German civil engineer and university professor. He is a leading researcher in the development of textile-reinforced concrete and carbon reinforced concrete respectively.