Manchac Swamp Bridge
by: Adrian Hernandez
&
Rosa Jaramillo
Title. Double click me.
Title. Double click me.
ADRIAN
Development of Testable Question
When I was doing my research on the Manchac bridge I found out that this bridge is one of the longest bridges throughout the whole United states and that it had already collapsed once but it was rebuilt and reopened to the public. Whenever I read this I wondered what had made the bridge collapse. At first I thought it was because of the size of the bridge being too big. I started making some inferences and this lead me to come up with a testable question that I can Test myself. I decided to test the material of the bridge. I wondered if The material of the bridge deck made any difference. At first I was going to see if the Type of material on the deck affected the amount of live load that the bridge could carry in any type of way. however, Throughout the experiment I noticed that, that wasn't exactly what i was looking for. I then decided to make a small change to where I would test if the Type of material on the deck affect the amount of Force that the bridge could carry. For example it may sound like its no much difference but I wanted to see how much the bridge could carry without it collapsing. To do this I had to put some weight on the deck to calculate how much force was needed in order for the bridge to collapse. Therefore, My first testable question would not work as good as the second one because on the first one I was just going to see if the bridge collapsed with the amount of weight that was put in it, but I did not really want to know if it collapsed or not i wanted to be more specific and get into more detailed by testing how much force is needed in order for it to actually collapse.
General Bridge Info.
The bridge that my team focused and researched about is called the Manchac Swamp bridge. The Manchac swamp bridge is located in the state of Louisiana and is one of the longest bridges that exist throughout the whole world. This bridge is a Twin concrete trestle bridge with a total length of 22.80 miles. The Manchac bridge opened in 1979 and is located beneath a swamp which is why they named it the Manchac Swamp bridge. This bridge costed approximately 7 million dollars per mile to complete. The reason why they built this bridge in this certain location was so that it could help people save some gas and time by not going around the swamp and instead just crossing right through it. This also had to do with the size of the swamp, because the swamp is way too big it would take forever to go around it more than it already does to just cross it straight across. The Manchac bridge has thirteen major parts just like the rest of the trestle bridges. Some of the main components of this bridge are concrete deck,pile caps , piling,plumb piles ,batter piles , and bridge seats. These are only some of the major parts that the Manchac bridge is made out of.The interesting thing About this bridge that amazes me is the length of it. Whenever I take a look at a picture of a bridge Its gets you thinking on how i it possible that the supports are carrying such a long bridge.
Development of Testable Question and Hypothesis
Analysis of Testable Question:
My Testable question stated that if the type of material on the deck affect the amount of force needed for the support systems to collapse? Throughout this project I had to know what were my variables in my testable question. Variables are basically any factor that can be controlled, changed , or measured in an experiment. In this case the independent variable and the dependent variables are the ones that are used wherever you are making a experiment. To be more specific the dependent variable is the variable that you measure or observe. The independent variable is the one condition that you change in a experiment. Before Beginning the experiment I made a hypothesis of what I thought was going to be the results of my testable question. I said that If we measure different type of material for the bridge deck and see which one would be able to hold the most amount of force then it would be the concrete. because that one is the strongest one out of all the other type of materials that were going to be tested. The good thing about creating and coming up with a testable question before starting an experiment is to have a better understanding of what is going on in the experiment. Whenever you document things that are happening , later on you will be able to go back and look at all the data that was collected.However, you can also learn many more things , for example in my experiment I was trying to figure out which type of material would hold the most amount of force and now I know how each material is affected by the amount of force that is put on it. Now that i see a Real life bridge I am able to understand why it was made that way.
Experiment Design & Procedure
Experiment Design:
My testable question was “ Does the type of material on the deck affect the amount of force needed for the support systems to collapse?” The Independent Variable for my testable question is the type of material which is the one that that is going to vary. The dependent variable is the amount of force that is needed for the support systems to collapse. For the Independent variable I used four different types of materials which were concrete, wood , aluminum , and cardboard. I made sure that all the different four types of materials were each the same size so that it wouldn't affect the experiment. Since my dependent variable was the amount of force that is needed for the deck to collapse i decided to use a Device that measure the amount of force so that it would tell me exactly how much force it took to collapse the bridge. In this experiment it was really important that the decks were all the same sizes and the support systems had to stay constant to. By doing this it gave us better accurate results because we knew that everything was kept the same except the type of material meaning that there wasn't much difference which would make the results a lot more accurate.
Experiment Procedures:
In order for you to make this experiment you must have four different types of materials with the size of 8x2 inches. Once you have all your 4 different type of materials you will need to make two pillars for every trial. The pillars must all be the same size and there must be enough for five trials. Once everything is set up you will need to get the first material and put it on top of two pillars. Once the material is on top of both pillars you will then get the force measuring device and push it down right in the center of the material that is being tested. You will push it down until the bridge collapse in any type of way as long as the bridge is no longer standing in the position that a bridge has to be in. once the bridge collapse you will then record the data on your notebook and you will do this for five trials and for each different type of material
Reflection:
One Problem that I had during the experiment was that I did not have enough material for all the trials and I had to find some more and get it from another partner. Another problem was that I kept mistaking my testable question and sometimes was trying to test the first one that I had instead of the new one that I came up with. These things happened mainly because I was not really organized when i was collecting Data. One Thing that I feel like it could have affected my experiment was that I made sure that all my materials were the same size in length and width but I did not think about the thickness of the material. I feel like the thickness of the material had to do a lot with it because depending on how thick it was then it also depended how much weight it can hold.If I ever did this project again Next time I will make sure that I am prepared and organized and double check that I have followed my procedures correctly.
