Plastic bridge in Huron County may be path to the future
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Bridges don't get much smaller than one carrying Ridge Road over a Huron River tributary in Huron County's Fairfield Township.
"It's only 17 feet long. Even at 20 miles an hour, it's like half a second to cross it," said Douglas Nims, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Toledo.
But Mr. Nims and several of his students were there to observe when the Huron County Engineer's Office installed a replacement last month, and they will be back in the future to take readings from an array of sensors built into the structure.
That's because the new Ridge Road bridge is not made of steel or concrete or even wood.
It's plastic, reinforced with fiber glass. The only metal on it is the guardrails. Inside are 16 gauges to measure the strain placed on the bridge by the loads that cross it, and eight that measure deflection - the degree to which it bounces or is pushed around by traffic.
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Wednesday 8 October, 2008 04:09 AM |
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