Introduction - Computational Analysis and Design of Bridge Structures - page 4

Figure 1.1 Roman viaduct, Pont du Gard, France. (Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/File:Pont_du_Gard_BLS.jpg.)
tools, bridges can be built with incredible span lengths. Roman viaducts
inspired the building of another incredible Roman viaduct structure,
Millau Viaduct (Figure 1.3), a cable-stayed bridge in Southern France. It
is the tallest bridge in the world with one of the masts standing at 343 m
(1125 ft) above the base of the structure. Currently, the longest span bridge
in the world (1991 m or 6532 ft) is the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, a suspension
bridge linking the city of Kobe on the mainland of Honshu to Iwaya on
Awaji Island, Japan (Figure 1.4).
Although extra-long span bridges, like cable-stayed and suspension
bridges, are the marvels of bridge structures, medium to short span bridges
are the norm. In the United States, the most important transportation net-
work is the Interstate Highway System composed of over 44,000 miles
(70,800 km) of roadway and around 55,000 bridges. The development of the
Interstate Highway System after World War II also propelled the growth of
bridge engineering in the last century. The advent of the Interstate Highway
System led to the adoption of uniform design standards in the United States
and eventually the science of bridge engineering. During this era of the larg-
est public works project, inorder to mass-produce building materials and
construct bridges, simplified procedures and simple analysis models were
generated and used. The development of the Interstate Highway System