Week Ten to Presentation

After gathering all the remaining materials from Home Depot, Zakiya, John, Jason and I began to put the final pieces together and the Rion Antirrion bridge was formed. We started by measuring out the distance for each pylon so it evenly took up the space of the wooden platform. The next step, was to measuring the plastic pieces to fit through the individual pylons. After came the part that was most difficult, we needed to feed the string through the individual holes on the pylons and attached them equidistant to halfway through the length between each pylon. However, after it was all said and done the bridge looked pretty good!

John Cutting Plastic for Roads

Plastic added to Pylons

Tissue Paper Added

Strings Added

Then the during the week the presentations were worked on with the power points, and the final report was finished. All we had left to do was show up with the model and present what we had been working on these past few weeks. 

Week Nine Breakdown

Basically for the final working week, we just went over some simple issues with the design of the bridge, things such as the coloring that we were going to make the pillars for the presentation, and other different minor factors. Our original designs had the bridge colors being solid white, but we dabbled with the idea of it being all grey. John was in charge of this coloring, and he came up with a nice little white and light sky blue combo that really came out nicely. As for the cable system, we have the string that was brought in by Zakiya, and we are ready to start finishing this model, all we need is to get the base and the road. This weekend we really need to make it a priority to finish this thing off. We also have the final report, as well as the actual presentation to complete as well. These things will most likely will be finished up by Saturday at the Race Learning Terrace. As for right now here are the updated pillar pictures.

Grey or White?

Final Product

Week Eight Breakdown

This week was a relatively simple week, as a group we decided that we would split up the rest of the things that we needed for the design, and get them over the weekend. Many of us will be going home and so we decided to go ahead and divide up the responsibilities among the five us to get the remaining materials. We also discussed setting up times to meet up next week and put the rest of the structures together, and finish the final report.

Week Seven Breakdown

Week seven lab period we discussed the last leg of the term that we would be completing. We decided that we would meet up Monday afternoon and pick up the final materials that we need to finish the construction of the bridge. Then Monday afternoon at around seven we would gather and construct the final product, and we will finish the final presentation. We have decided this because next weekend a lot of us are leaving to go home for Memorial day weekend. We also tested the string that we would be using as the cable system for the bridge in lab. Although the string looks a little smaller than we would like, we concluded that with all the loops and holes we have in our three printed pylons that we would be able to use it because of the sheer amount we could use to support the platform.

Our draft for our final report was also handed into BBLearn as well as in class today. As for the final pieces that we will be picking up for the bridge, we decided on going to Home Depot, to pick up the final pieces to the puzzle. We are leaning towards balsa wood for the road, and Styrofoam for the base of the bridge to sit on. As for the attachment of the strings to the road we had a debate on whether we wood drill holes of tape the string to the wood. We have gone to the conclusion that we will tape the string to the bottom of the road and then place another piece of wood to the bottom over top of the tape to cover it up and make it look more professional. Another thing we are thinking about is spray painting the pylons to look more like the original design. The decision right now is to spray paint it a silver color, and that's where were at right now.

Week Six Breakdown:

During our week six lab get together, we were able to get the rest of our pieces for the bridge pylons together. We were able to construct the final three structures using the hot glue gun in class, and we had the basis of our bridge figured out and ready to build up from. Now we need to discuss the rest of the materials and finish building the separate pieces to make the Rion Antirrion Bridge look as good as we can get it to look. Also during lab we had a blog check and scored a 98% on it! Now we will be meeting tonight to finish up the final report draft. Time is flying!

Individual Pieces

One Constructed Pylon

Side View of Four Pylons

Front View

Background/FAQ/Tutorial

Background Information:
The official name of the Rion-Antirion bridge is the “Harilaos Trikoupis Bridge”, in honour of Harilaos Trikoupis, a 19th century Greek prime minister who was the first to suggest the idea of building a bridge between Rion and Antirion. The crossing is a 2252m long and 27.20m [1] wide cable stayed bridge with a suspended deck making it the world’s second longest cable stay bridge behind the Millau Viaduct. The bridge connects the Peloponnese to mainland Greece replacing a ferry crossing and so speeding up travel time from 45 minutes to an impressive 5 minutes. The Rion-Antirion bridge is has two lanes of traffic travelling in both directions, one emergency lane and access for pedestrians and cyclist. It currently has about 10,000 vehicles crossing over the bridge every day. The bridge was designed in 1992 by French consortium led by Vinci and Berdj Mikaelian as the lead architect, with construction starting in 1998 and was completed ahead of schedule in time for the Olympic torch to be carried across for the Athens Olympics in 2004 under a build, operate and transfer (BOT) scheme costing 750 million Euros. There were several difficulties the bridge had to overcome caused by the geology of region. The bridge spans across a tectonic plate boundary, so has to be able to withstand potential movements between piers of up to 2.5m [2] as well as earthquakes. In addition to this the soil quality is very poor, 80m of alluvial material with 60m of water above it.

[3] Night View of Rion Antirrion

FAQ:

What are changes that you plan on making to the design of the bridge?

We have been planning on building a more efficient design to the way the bridge detects seismic activity going underneath it. We have come up with an idea that has a seismometer attached to the support system of the bridge that can detect earthquake activity and help lead to a better quicker plan of action.

What are some things the original engineers had to deal with to get the bridge built?

The main things that the engineers dealt with in creating this bridge dealt with the foundation it was constructing on. The loose sediment and sandy area that the foundation blocks were built on were not \very sturdy and could lead to a lot of unwanted movement in the base. Another thing factored into the equation was the high wind area they were in. This lead to a lot of movement with the bridge and they had to keep into account this.

What is your model being constructed of?

We three dimensional printed the pylons as our first material. We plan on either using somewhat bendable plastic or wood to use as the platform for the road inter weaved within these four pylons, and the support and cable system is going to be made out of wire or string materials.   

Tutorial:

These are just a few picture of the designs of the pylons that were made using Creo, John created these:

Top of Pylon

Pylon Base

Full Pylon

References:

[1] Combault,Jacques. 2005. Rion-antirion bridge, Greece - Concept, design, and construction. Structural Engineering Internationa,l Vol. 15, Is. 1, pp. 22-26. 

[2] Hytiris,N. 2001. Rion-Antirion bridge, GreeceMeasuring a moving gap, Proceedings of the ICE - Civil Engineering, Vol. 144, Is. 4, pp. 166-170.

[3]Ice, John T. Rion Antirion Bridge By Night. Digital image. Take Earth Photography. N.p., 28 Nov. 2006. Web. 4 May 2015.

Week Five Breakdown

We received the 3-D printings of the pillars and the one that was printed looked really good as it appears below. The only problem with the whole process of the 3-D printing was that it took almost 23 hours to print this one piece. The main source of error is that although the material in between the pillars is non existent, the printer still needs to print material to hold the cables in place, and this is why it takes so long. So what we did was adjusted the angle that we printed it from, and we did it sideways. This allowed us to print the pillar in separate pieces, and then hot glue them into place.
Pictures below.

First Printing

Tilted View

Top View

Second Printing

From this point on we are waiting for the rest of the pillars and are discussing the materials that we intend to use for the cables that go through the wholes on top of the pillars. We also are talking about what the road will be constructed from. We have to find that happy medium between stability, and strength for what the road will be able to hold up, using the stringed material of choice. Progress is being seen, but we definitely have a long road ahead of us!