Divided Bridges

From the Bering Strait to the connection between the Hill Center and the Engineering Building, bridges have been used for thousands of years to connect people with places. As people began building bridges, they have to consider not only the structural integrity of the bridge for the safety of the passengers crossing the bridge. With the invention of cars, even more safety precautions must be enacted to keep everyone safe. A car is being driven on a windy day has a higher chance of turning over or spinning out of control than when the weather is calm. This is especially dangerous on a bridge because the car can flip over the edge of the bridge and drop hundreds of feet. Surprisingly, one of the bridges many support structures actually increases the likelihood that the wind flowing across the bridge could cause the car to flip or slide. …show more content…
Two studies observed the aerospace forces on a vehicle passing through a long-span cable-stayed bridge. However, the effect of the bridge towers that held the suspension cables on the vehicle was not taken into account. Later research found that the force on the side of the vehicle increased as the vehicle re-entered into the crosswind after being shielded by the bridge tower. This force, if strong enough, could cause the car to flip over or spin. From the Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Bin Wang, You-Lin Xu, Le-Dong Zhu and Yong-Le Li investigated the crosswind effect on road vehicles passing by bridge towers by using a wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics simulations to analyze the aerospace forces on the vehicle. The major goal of this paper was to assess the danger crosswind flow around bridge towers poses on