lakehead u’s civil engineering team places second at steel bridge competition

(thunder bay - march 9, 2006) a team of 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜 civil engineering 世界杯2022赛程表淘汰赛 traveled to the university of wisconsin - platteville, to take second place in the american institute of steel construction/american society for civil engineering mid-west regional student steel bridge competition this past weekend.
from march 2 to 4, tyler brake, rick brannan, travis fillier, richard gillies, brett halicki, and tom lovric were in wisconsin competing against seven universities from across the mid-west united states. 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜 was the only canadian team in the event.
the goal of the competition is to design a 1/10 scale model for replacement of a century-old bridge that crosses an emergent wetland. the models, approximately 21ft long, are erected under simulated field conditions and then load tested. the specification for the bridge changes from year to year, constantly challenging the engineering skills of civil engineering 世界杯2022赛程表淘汰赛 taking part. not only does the event test the 世界杯2022赛程表淘汰赛 ' structural design capabilities, it also challenges them to fabricate and construct their design. the bridges are judged based on lightness, construction speed, stiffness (deflection), aesthetics, efficiency (combination of bridge weight and stiffness), and economy (combination of bridge weight and construction time - materials plus labour in a real bridge).
the bridge is designed and the components fabricated at the university by the 世界杯2022赛程表淘汰赛 prior to the competition. at the competition, the spectators watch as the team assembles their bridge as quickly as possible. after construction, the assembled bridge is weighed to determine the lightest bridge in the competition. to test strength and stiffness the bridge is then loaded using 50lb bags of salt to simulate a loaded truck crossing the bridge with a total of 2500 lbs of weight to test the strength and stiffness. the placement of the loading was determined by the roll of a dice. the team had to design their bridge by examining thirty-six possible load cases.
the lakehead team's 21-foot long bridge weighed 205 lbs and was assembled in 12 minutes. the bridge took second place for aesthetics, fifth for assembly time, fifth for construction economy, second for lightness, and third for structural efficiency - placing second overall.
the second place ranking qualifies lakehead for the u.s. national steel bridge competition for an eighth consecutive year. there will be about 45 teams at the national competition which will be held in salt lake city, utah, from may 26 to 27. 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜 has an excellent record at the national level, placing tenth in 2001, second in 2002, and fifth in 2003.
the team is looking for sponsors for their upcoming competition in utah in may. anyone interested can contact the team's faculty advisors dr. tony gillies at 343-8755 or dr. timo tikka at 343-8560.
members of the media: dr. gillies and dr. tikka are available for interviews. please contact marla tomlinson at 343-8177. photos are available upon request.