World’s Most Extreme Bridges | Masters of Engineering | Free Documentary

reach the

world

on the other side cross the bay first a curiosity then a necessity that has driven man since the dawn of history to develop construction methods that allow him to cross barriers but

bridges

are more than simple technological feats: they are links between men Leia Bello is a geophysicist, who will follow in the footsteps of exceptional builders, reveal the secrets behind the construction of iconic works and discover the challenges faced by engineers who build even higher and further; no engineer in her right mind would have chosen this place. to build a bridge unfortunately that was where a bridge was needed a scientific investigation to discover how men design and build civil structures true expressions of human genius to bridge the gap leia bello heads first to northeast india and the state of meghalaya to discover a hidden treasure Located on the border with Bangladesh, one third of the state is covered by dense humid forest.

Numerous streams meander through the valley, representing obstacles to the movements of the villages. For al

most

500 years they have intelligently tamed nature by building

bridges

using the roots of living trees. Be careful, it's very slippery slowly here's the bridge for you the live root breaks it's like something out of a fairy tale the bridge is still in use every day every day we have people living in the town above they come this way to go to in the monsoon time in their garden there is so much water without this bridge that they cannot cross this type of activity has been happening for many centuries in this area so it has been a common thing here.

This is a microadhesive, it has long stem roots, it can settle on rocks. and change the roots in the stream bed, that's how they started using it. It grows very well next to streams and rivers. See the size of the roots. This bridge is so strong that it can carry 100 people. Abandoned in the 1980s in favor of new concrete bridges. The living bridges have been the subject of a rehabilitation program started 15 years ago. Today the local inhabitants protect these wonders of nature. Throughout the valley there are about two dozen of these bridges, some of which span 20 meters.

We'll show you the last one, but no. the least and the best in this place there are two bridges very special bridge the only one of its kind in the

world

it is the only double decker rule bridge unique in the world the living roots bridges of meghalaya are also the only bridges that really get Stronger with age, this exceptional example of bio

engineering

illustrates how man can tame his environment to build pedestrian bridges that allow him to overcome natural obstacles. The first bridges in history were built using plants or materials of plant origin. Vines, ropes, wooden boards, etc., primitive bridges that are still built and maintained in some parts of the world, such as in the foothills of the Himalayas, in less forested areas, man turned to a more resistant material, stone, some Of these prehistoric bridges still standing today during the last millennia before our era, stone dominated the history of bridge construction until the Romans perfected the art for al

most

five centuries.

The Roman Empire reigned over Europe and the Mediterranean to expand. In its territory, the Romans developed an important network of roads and bridges. This people with a constructive mentality built numerous large-scale stone structures, some of which are still standing after two thousand years, such as the Ponduga in the south of France, which was built in the middle of the century. first century of our era its dimensions are impressive 47.6 meters high with a span of meters this iconic vestige is the highest elevated Roman aqueduct the largest bridge in the world from bottom to top its three levels have 6, 11 and 35 arches respectively the Vaulting has been used since Mesopotamian times but not always the solution discovered by the Romans was to build semicircular arches centered with the lateral thrust exerted on piles with very strong foundations, this produced much wider arches, from a few meters to 35 meters wide, once the piles were sunk into the river bed, the next task was to build the arches, the semicircular vault forms a structure that can encompass an empty space with successive arches.

To build the arches, a solid support known as falsework was needed, this constituted two wooden semicircles with the same shape as the intended arch and served as a frame, then stone blocks were placed on top of the wooden falsework until the last one, the key. In the first At the bridge level, the arches were formed with three parallel sections of stones. This form allowed the Romans to build arches with unprecedented spans, but it had its limits: if an arch had a span of more than 40 meters, the amount of stone would increase. If it were too heavy and the vault would collapse under its own weight, it is often said that the Romans were the greatest builders of ancient times, but what do we know about the exact construction techniques and methods they used?

We know a large number of things, but not everything, first of all, its construction techniques were absolutely remarkable, its level of

engineering

clearly surpassed that of the ancient Greeks who were also great engineers and Vitruvius, the Roman architect and engineer, left us the only known book on the subject that we can now consult for all our studies of archeology of antiquity Vitruvius was the author of the only surviving treatise on the architecture of antiquity is an exposition of the art of Roman construction and lists the tools and techniques used by These master builders from a theoretical point of view we learn from their keen sense of proportion the lines of their buildings form harmonious dimensions and use incommensurable numbers such as pi or the square roots of three and five the Romans set out to build for eternity their use of infinite numbers allowed them to obtain the absolute and also thanks to this geometric system.

The stonemasons also knew the methods perfectly and that is why they were able to reproduce in situ and on a much larger scale, of course, the plans drawn by the architect, while the pond remains A model of aestheticism and architectural perfection, it was actually built for a very precise purpose. purpose of bringing fresh water to Neem, one of the largest cities in Gaul with twenty thousand inhabitants, the spring chosen was the Fontender, about fifty kilometers from Nime. The distance was not a problem for the architects, but something else was that they hoped to find a spring. much higher than the arrival, but the hard fontan was only 17 meters higher, which forced the builders to build an aqueduct with an

extreme

ly gentle slope, one of the gentlest in ancient times, how gentle it was 24 centimeters per kilometer , a slope equivalent to only one millimeter every four meters and without expert calculations it was impossible to ensure a regular slope along the 50 kilometers of the aqueduct, especially across the pond, which means that you have a canal with a slope like this quite steep followed by a very gentle slope and then another steep one so in the central part the water from the bridge flowed much slower so the result is that the water rose in the canal and once the aqueduct was in service they realized that it It overflowed from the pondoga so the original wall only reached up to here and to stop the overflow of water they had to build exactly up to here this masterpiece of antiquity supplied water to the neem for almost 500 years until the fall of the Roman Empire the construction of immense works Architectural and engineering techniques disappeared with the dark ages and were only resumed 500 years later, around the year 1000 with the spread of Christianity and the power of the church, the builders of the Middle Ages again adopted the techniques and methods of the Roman architects during the following centuries.

Some bridges were notable because houses and shafts were built on them. In them most of these have disappeared like the old London Bridge and the Notre Dame Bridge in Paris but others have bravely survived like the Rialto Bridge in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence but there was no true architectural evolution until the Renaissance Between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages there was practically no progress from a technical point of view. The real break occurred at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century with a notable lightning strike in the general line of bridges.

Gradually the centering semicircular arches were replaced by elliptical arches that offered a wider arch span, consequently the bridges became lighter and slender and this meant that they could cross greater distances, but it was not until the middle of the century XVIII that came the first great technological break with the genre Dolph Perroni considered the father of modern engineering. He was also the first to understand the true mechanics of a stone arch bridge. He established that each arch was not independent of the others and that the thrust was shared between the spans. This crucial observation meant that the thickness of a bridge's piles could be considerably reduced.

He developed a somewhat systematic understanding, one might say today, of how bridges worked, so he built bridges in a different way to those. traditional, with their bridges the thrust of each section kept the others in balance unlike the pond where if one arch collapsed others could give way the arches of the modern bridge were much more interconnected and the thrust went from arch to arch to the abutments the stone It thus dominated the history of bridges until the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The dominance of iron allowed engineers to design structures with new profiles.

Iron was the great revolution for bridges. It was approximately 60 times more resistant to pressure and thrust than stone and would result in considerably lighter structures. Iron withstood tensile and pressure strength, which meant that architects could finally drop the arch that had been the dominant form of bridges since Roman times. Iron allowed builders to build bridges with triangular crossbars. lighter and stronger could cover even greater distances the rapid development of railways demanded new technological solutions to cross rivers and valleys engineers stopped at nothing like crossing the deepest gorges where no one had ever dreamed of facing nature and closing the gap.

The Garabee Viaduct is a striking example of this audacity. It was designed by Gustav Effel, a visionary engineer and determined architect whose solid but elegant bridges reached heights that gave vertigo to his contemporaries. Located in the heart of the central massif, the Garabi Viaduct crosses

extreme

ly undulating terrain, 565 meters long and 120 meters wide. high the railway bridge rests on seven piles and a single main arch with a span of 165 meters what was here before the construction of the bridge nothing in garabee absolutely nothing they had to lay new roads just to get to the site then they had to build accommodation For the men who would work on the viaduct, why build a bridge where nothing existed so that the train with its passengers and goods could reach the region since the railway was being developed throughout France there was still no line through the department of contal that directly linked paris with bezier without surrounding the enormous power plant the gigantic works began in 1880 the viaduct was built in just four years an incredible technological feat for the time, it continues almost there, the garabee viaduct was the test bed for a revolutionary technology and it was while this bridge was being built that gustav ethel patented his famous lattice girders used several years later for the eiffel tower the structure is fascinating totally fascinating and in the characteristic fl style with open lace girders allowing the wind to Come on, that's right, it's a very airy structure, how is it built?

Everything just came together here. Half was pre-assembled in the workshops at the nearby valuaapere. Paris, the other half was hot riveted here in Gariby, the wrought iron beams were assembled with rivets, these little iron shaft fasteners were inserted between each piece of the structure, once heated to red or white and the glue of the rivet has been hammered flat, they hold the pieces together when they cool once the bridge was completed it must have been a great event for the region, yes, and not only for the region but for the entire world of civil engineering , the bridge was marveled because of its height to the United States. one of the two most talked about works of a man among the hundred who built around the world the garabee viaduct and the eiffel tower erected four years later are testimonies of the genius of gustav eiffel and the perfect mastery of iron iron dominated the history of The bridges at the end of the 19th century were multiplied throughout Europe and the United States, but few engineers understood how the iron would react.especially cast iron, with the passage of time due to the constant train crossings.

The bridges, often hastily built, became the scene of terrible disasters in the United States. Almost 200 of them collapsed. In the 1880s, these repeated the end of the iron bridge, engineers turned to a new, much stronger material, steel, an alloy of iron and carbon whose development took metal working from the domain of craftsmanship to that of science, bless you, a high quality steel. It has far superior mechanical qualities compared to iron, so you can go much further with it. It had a great impact from the beginning of the 20th century because, unlike iron, it could be welded and that would totally transform assembly technology.

Today, no one would even imagine building a A great engineering work without steel opened the door to rapid technological progress around the world. Elegant-looking bridges across rivers emerged that broke records with spans of several hundred metres, such as the fourth bridge on the Firth of Scotland, but we go back to the early 19th century, another construction method. The suspension bridge was born in the United States, bridges where the road deck is hung under suspension cables firmly anchored in abutments on the banks of the river. The suspension bridge is a very simple idea and not that complex to build.

The main thing back then was to ensure that the steel used in the cables was of good quality so that they would not break, there was much debate because for a long time the bridges were suspended by chains, then by cables and then by modern groups of cables with cables made of steel suspension bridges were all the rage. But it was the audacity of an engineer of German origin that would give the United States one of the wonders of the modern world, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to better understand how this bridge changed the history of engineering and that of New York.

Leia Brawl joins dave frieda on the banks of the east river this bridge photographer is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to the brooklyn bridge this legendary 1825 meter wide bridge beats all span and height records construction began in 1870 giving birth to an era of ambition and sacrifice of an entire family the roblings john robling who designed the bridge unfortunately did not have the opportunity to see his finished bridge was inspecting the foundations of the bridge On the south side of the Brooklyn tower a ferry had arrived, He didn't see it and it crushed his foot and the only treatment he wanted was to pour water on it.

Unfortunately, he died of tetanus, so his son Washington Robling took over as chief. engineer, so Washington was the one who actually built the bridge. He went down to the caissons to help the men dig out the mud and rocks beneath. He wanted to be part of the team, but they never heard back from the drawers about the change. in the air pressure, he went up and was lying in his bed in his bedroom, so his wife Emily Roebling then transferred all the information from him in Washington to all the workers, so Emily Robling was instrumental in helping build the great Brooklyn Bridge, of which she was one. the first female civil engineer to really help what she did was absolutely incredible.

I think without Emily Roebling we wouldn't have the Brooklyn Bridge today. The construction of what was then the world's largest suspension bridge was plagued by numerous problems and disasters, starting with the largest. ambitious and dangerous stage of the project the sinking of the immense foundations into the bed of the eastern river the construction of the foundations used an innovative process washington roebling had two giant wooden caissons made, 50 meters long by 30 meters wide the imposing blocks of granite for the towers were placed on top, which gradually sank the caissons to the river bed. Once there, at a depth of 30 meters, compressed air was injected into the giant boxes so that they could withstand the pressure of water in this humid, narrow and pressurized space.

Workers dug for several months to anchor the piles into the bedrock, debris and mud rose to the surface through a central conduit, and in just four years the two towers had begun to rise from the East River at that time. At the time little was known about the effects of pressure on the human body. Contractors and workers began to suffer from strange illnesses. The caissons on the Manhattan side were 30 meters deep, meaning the pressure inside would have been three times greater than the pressure on the surface, which must be what made it so dangerous for the men working in the inside when I returned to the surface Yes, I used to dive, so I know the dangers of decompressing if you come out to ambient pressure too quickly.

It's like opening a container of soda. Open the lid too quickly. The gases come out too quickly. It's the same with nitrogen. in the blood it comes out, it gets deposited in the joints, it's extremely painful, so now you know you have to come out to ambient pressure very slowly. They didn't know it at the time, so they called it Caisson's disease because almost everyone who entered the caisson came out in extreme pain. Many men died despite numerous challenges. The 90-meter-high towers were completed in 1875 and It was possible to begin with the installation of the cables the four main cables these main cables are the ones that support the road platform each cable contains cables Thus, the 5434 cables form a 15 and three-quarter inch cable.

Each cable can withstand tensile stress of 25 million pounds. They have been anchored to anchors on both sides of the bridge. The main cables are original. Some of the engineers I know worked on it. bridge and cables the tomato wire like this one are in excellent condition they are galvanized this is the first suspension bridge in the world to use galvanized steel wires it is steel coated with zinc the zinc oxidizes but does not rust and protects the steel underneath So , this could easily last 2,300 years to demonstrate the strength of the cables. Master mechanic E. Farrington crossed the East River suspended from them.

In total, 23,000 kilometers of cables were installed after 13 years of work. The bridge was finally completed. Its inauguration on May 21, 1883 was a national event all of New York was invited the president was here the mayor was here it was called decoration day the entire city basically shut down to celebrate the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge a week later it was what which is called the Stampede bridge, someone had tripped on decoration day a week later and people thought the bridge was collapsing and unfortunately many people were trampled to death, so to make up for that, Washington Robling had a whole herd of elephants crossed the bridge and that turned out to be for the public that the bridge was very safe I believe that this bridge can last for centuries it is a marvel of engineering I hope many future New Yorkers and other people around the world can see this great structure the bridge of Roebling's Brooklyn is now known around the world and is one of New York's most iconic landmarks, more than 130 years later it still stands as a true work of craftsmanship given the knowledge of the time that inspired other famous great bridges such as the washington bridge across manhattan and the golden gate in san francisco but other bridges have proven to be less durable the first tacoma narrow bridge in washington state would collapse under the effects of a suspension bridge's main enemy the wind the past July the nation hailed the opening of the new six and a half million dollar Tacoma Narrow Bridge over Puget Sound This is the opening of the Tacoma Narrow Bridge, yes it was opened on July 7, 1940 and the bridge began to swing towards up and down from the beginning during the summer of 1940 people visited the bridge just to see it sway it became a tourist attraction and became famous yes from the beginning except that in November there was the first storm of the fall it was not a big storm but there were winds of 70 kilometers per hour across the strait and instead of oscillating up and down the platform began to rotate from one side to the other, it had a width of almost nine meters and after an hour, about At 11 in the morning, the entire central section gave way and collapsed into the Tacoma Strait, oh yeah, there it goes. leaves us with a wonderful example of how not to build a suspension bridge, one of the best structures in the United States, fortunately the collapse of the bridge claimed no victims, except for a terrified dog locked in the car in the middle of the bridge, he did not miss a person, but A true tragedy when the wind blew on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, air pressure was exerted on the edges of the deck, transferring its energy to the structure itself and causing the road to buckle and sway after the collapse of the bridge, architects and engineers began to study a lot.

We delved into the impact of wind on bridges, but it wasn't until the 1970s that aerodynamics became a science in its own right, from then on bridge decks were rationalized to facilitate airflow around the structure. and avoid any risk. Balanced with the invention and mastery of new materials during the 20th century, man could build longer and higher bridges with even more impressive dimensions; It was the era of concrete the king of bridge construction and much cheaper than steel and would benefit from a revolutionary process developed by the French engineer Urgente Freshini that was perfect for civil engineering works.

Prestressed concrete is concrete that has been compressed in such a way that the traction exerted on it is more than offset by the tension exerted on it, for example if you make a bundle of sugar cubes it will not resist the traction at all, but if you compress the cubes you can place a small object on them, say an eraser, and the bundle of sugar will remain firm because the disintegrating effect produced by the weight of the eraser is cancelled. Due to the fact that the cubes are closer together, this new material has been used in most bridges that exist today and will be used in hybrid bridges, such as cable-stayed bridges built with a mix of concrete and steel.

The bridge does not require the costly anchoring of the suspension bridge because the platform is no longer suspended from a gigantic main cable, but supported by a series of individual cables running directly from the towers. This new model spread throughout the world in the second half of the 20th century. century breaking all kinds of records, as in 1995 with the Normandy pond and its span of 856 meters, nothing seemed capable of stopping the ambitions of architects and engineers, not even the wrath of nature that managed to destroy several of its bridges as during Earthquake. In Kobe, Japan, in 1995, the Anterio River Bridge stretches across the Gulf of Corinth, linking the Peloponnese with mainland Greece at a point where two and a half kilometers separate the two coasts.

The region lies between two tectonic plates, making it one of the most seismic in the world. Europe no sane engineer would have chosen this place to build a bridge unfortunately that was where a bridge was needed project director jean-paul t sandier worked for over five years with supervising engineer gilda moblong together they came up with solutions without precedents the first The difficulty was the water depth of 65 meters, which is no longer a field of bridge construction but of marine engineering. Secondly, the seabed was of very poor quality. Thirdly, there are faults that are constantly active, which means that the distance changes between the two coasts and during a strong earthquake there could be a sudden change of several meters.

When we discovered the scale of the work we were tempted to close the file and reject it. At the same time we liked the idea of ​​facing an enormous challenge and we thought that there should be a solution. As a solution, the bridge must be able to withstand earthquakes of up to seven degrees on the Richter scale, so the main challenge was to lay sufficiently solid foundations. to protect itself from the wrath of the earth, but preliminary studies showed that the seabed was particularly unstable due to poor quality. of the seabed our first idea was the classic excavation to find better quality terrain but after a detailed analysis we soon discovered that the rock bed was at a depth of about a thousand meters so it was totally unviable and unrealistic after doing a After much research, we came up with a totally innovative concept due to the extreme depth of the bedrock, the engineers soon abandoned the idea of ​​laying the foundation under the seabed and instead decided to consolidate it using a completely new solution on which each of the four enormous pylons rest. groups of 200 hollow steel tubes introduced into the bed.

The tubes measure 25 to 30 meters long with a diameter of two meters and are then covered with a bed of gravel three meters thick on which the foundations called footings simply rest. ofpier the dimensions of the footings are gigantic each one is divided into 32 compartments and have a diameter of 90 meters they are still the largest pier bases ever built the previous river bridge has another peculiarity instead of lower and upper pylons there are piles of A single concrete block suspended deck is continuous from one end to the other and passes between the pylons and is suspended by only 368 stays.

It is a true floating roadway, so in the event of an earthquake it can sway gently and to prevent the platform from hitting the pylons the engineers had to devise an ingenious system to stabilize the bridge. Let's start with the large central tube, it is a rigid tube that supports the structure transversely in high winds, but for a major earthquake that its rigid support cannot withstand, there is a fuse inside it that breaks allowing the small tube to enter the large one then one two three four shock absorbers very similar to come into play The shock absorbers of your car when you enter a hole absorb the energy under each of the pylons.

The platform is maintained by this system of fuses and 10 shock absorbers one meter long and more than 400 different measuring instruments monitor the movements of the bridge. in real time. On June 8, 2008, the screen suddenly went crazy when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit southern Greece during the 2008 earthquake. Everything went according to plan. Connections were broken. The shock absorbers absorbed the impacts and the platform was able to swing

free

ly, so it was a true life-size test of whether our project was sound or not. Thanks to the shock absorbers, during an earthquake, the platform can move laterally 3.5 meters without hitting the ground.

Pilones Rio Anterior is an extraordinary extraordinary bridge because it is a bridge implanted in an extraordinary environment, each bridge marks a victory over the elements of earth, water and air and several of them are true feats due to the uniqueness of the terrain they cross in the majestic valley gorge. river city in the south of france the mio viaduct has become the new holder of the world record for bridges with its cable-stayed platform of 2,460 meters at 275 meters high. It was built to

free

mio from a curse, its constant traffic jams, but to re-lay the highway the new road would have to cross one of the deepest gorges in europe with a width of two and a half kilometers michelle via lauger graduated from the best engineering school in france el echo de ponzi schusse has worked in almost 200 bridges during In his career he is known as the father of the Normandy Pond and he participated in the design of the Basque Gama Bridge in Lisbon Portugal in Mio the complex geography of the valley was for a long time a real challenge for the engineer several routes were planned because at first we had to cross a large network of valleys the elevated solution to go from plateau to plateau did not occur to us due to the necessary height of the pylons and then an engineer expert in road construction told us why we did not stay at the same level as the plateaus and we thought we were stupid. that is what we have to do engineers had never built so high once the route was decided the designer had to imagine the profile that best suited the landscape my idea was to build a cable-stayed bridge with multiple spans why because so that the sea ​​bridge Thin, transparent stays would be best, plus it is also the most effective structure for supporting the load, allowing for larger spans and therefore fewer towers.

British architect Norman Foster's team, Michel Villager, worked on finalizing the viaduct plans for almost 10 years. Finally the work began. in 2001, a gigantic project in which Mark Bonamo worked as an engineer who supervised the construction of the metal road. You feel small, yeah, how many meters is it from here to the top? 245 meters 245 meters is the highest island in the world. With its 2,460 meter long deck, the Mio Viaduct is one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, resting on seven pairs of piles and pylons separated by 342 meters, the bridge reaches a maximum height of 343 meters, making it It is taller than the Eiffel Tower. width at the base of the pylon the base is the size of a tennis court and the concrete is five meters thick underneath there are four large piles 18 meters deep and four meters in diameter and everything that anchors this pylon in the rock below During the work seven pylons were built at the same time to gain speed each was given its own crane to pour the concrete the pylons grew four meters every three days in December 2003 two years after construction began the pylons were complete each of these divisions in two for the last 94 meters a characteristic shape that was not chosen by chance: a bridge, even when built taking into account limited deformations, remains extremely flexible, so we had to choose a shape for the piles and pylons that would give them the necessary rigidity to limit deformations and at the same time also allowing longitudinal expansions of the deck due to temperature variations to allow the movements of the deck that the piles and pylons are divided into two slender axes at the top The entire deck was built on site in workshops on the plateaus on both sides of the bridge.

One hundred and fifty men, assisted by robots, carried out more than a thousand kilometers of welding to assemble the steel road. How did you get the structure into place? The idea occurred to me to push her into position. It is not a classic way of pushing because the pylons are so high that the highest measures 245 meters and they are also very flexible so they would not have resisted classic pushes, so we invented a sliding system with wedge conveyors, our famous wedges, Each conveyor was made up of two wedges that slid over each other with the use of jacks.

The first lifting wedge slid under the second holding the road. This second wedge was then raised two centimeters and as it no longer rested on the piles it was able to move forward. Once in position the first wedge slid again, the conveyor returned to its original position and the bicycle was able to start again to advance the road 60 centimeters by 60 centimeters thanks to this unique system of its kind in the world the northern and southern sections of the board came together in May 2004 after 15 months of sliding to get the pylons vertical, the engineers were inspired by ancient techniques and developed a bespoke lifting system.

They basically copied the model invented by the Egyptians to raise their obelisks in Luxor. Builders must know all the techniques used for at least the last 4,000 years, whether Egyptian, Roman, 19th century, 20th century, when you mix all of that you can build great works of civil engineering that will be part of the long history of human construction. which is a mix of history and technology after only three years of work carried out by almost 600 people, the completed bridge stood majestically over the tan valley gorge, it was inaugurated on december 14, 2004 by the then president jacques shirak, A proud memory for Misha and Velozio, what really touched me about the occasion was when President Shirak got out of his car.

It was fantastic, more than 10 years after it was built, the Mio Viaduct still holds the record for the tallest pylon in the world, but in the last decade other limits have been pushed. Recently, engineers have broken new records with their 1,408 spaced pylons. meters away the record for cable-stayed span is held by the third bridge over the bosphorus designed by michel vellujo in istanbul and china has recently broken the height record with a bridge that culminates at 565 meters over the baipan river so is there any limit that can't? I don't know how far we can push the limits.

We could envision increasingly wider spans, but we would need a new type of material. Traditional materials like concrete and steel will end up being too heavy for exceptionally wide spans. A suspension bridge with steel cables has its limits at the moment when they can no longer support their own weight, we must stop things will continue to evolve but in the short term I do not foresee any major revolution before erecting ever larger bridges, engineers without No doubt they will develop new materials but they will not deviate from the fundamental principles that form the uniqueness of these works of engineering, beauty and efficiency, both are needed and that goes back to the principles of Vitruvius 2000 years ago, which are utilitas fermitas venestas utilitas is utility , a bridge must have a purpose femitas is resistance a bridge must endure and must be durable and finally venustas which is beauty and elegance your