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While most of campus was gearing up for the Lafayette-Lehigh football game, members of the Lafayette Steel Bridge Team were practicing for their own big event. The team presented their design for the 2007 National Student Steel Bridge Competition to a select group of alumni.
This is the second year that preparations for the National Student Steel Bridge Competition have been structured around an independent study. The core group of students designing the bridge and participating in the Steel Bridge Design independent study course are civil engineering majors Lee Vanzler ‘07 (Sharon, Mass.), Eric Backlund ‘07 (Parlund, N.J.), Dan Kucz ‘07 (Newfoundland, Pa.), and Joe Danatzko ‘07 (West Caldwell, N.J.). Both the course and the project are mentored by Stephen Kurtz, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.
“The independent study allowed for us to concentrate great efforts into designing and optimizing the bridge, with sufficient time to fully interpret and understand the specifications for the current year and its implications on our design,” says Vanzler, president of Lafayette’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). “With the semester coming to a close and the majority of the design now accounted for, we are confident that the level of optimization within the bridge is fantastic and that we are bound to achieve great success at the regional competition at the University of Maryland on May 5 and later that month at nationals in Northridge, California.”
The students started with the course the weekend prior to the beginning of classes in August, participating in a “steel bridge retreat” to review the change in NationalStudentSteelBridge rules put forth by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and ASCE. They also crafted their own personal rules by which they would live for the next three months so they could design the best bridge possible.
The purpose of the independent study course is to design a bridge within the specifications of these rules and compete at the regional competition. The ultimate goal is to win the national competition. An invitation-only event, the national competition hosts schools that finish at the top of their respective regional events.
“The steel bridge competition does a great job at helping to prepare students for a future in engineering,” says Vanzler. “The project teaches us to look at all components of a project – the technical design, the economics, and the constructability – to create a product that is both serviceable and friendly to the community and the economy.”
“To say I’m excited for the National Student Steel Bridge Competition would be the understatement of the year,” adds Kucz. “All of us have been looking forward to it for a year. At regionals, and hopefully nationals, it is time to show off the work that we have dedicated so much time to. It is our job to represent the Civil and Environmental Engineering program at Lafayette, and it is an honor to be able to show all the other competitors that Lafayette is one of the best institutions in the nation.”
As for the alumni presentation, Vanzler places great importance on that as well.
“It was very valuable to have [alumni] familiar with the competition question our decision and force us to revisit some of the choices we made early in our design process,” Vanzler says. “It was comforting to see that we were able to respond to each question with a strong explanation, giving us greater confidence in the work we have done thus far.”
“I feel Lafayette is unmatched in the opportunities it provides its students,” says Kucz. “Through this independent study, I have gained the knowledge of designing a bridge that is the best it can possibly be. This process screams engineering, and I have been lucky enough to gain the academic value of this process while at Lafayette.”
The National Student Steel Bridge Competition attracts over 200 engineering schools nationally to regional competitions. From these regional competitions, approximately 40 teams qualify for the national competition held each May. The object of the event is to produce a bridge made of structural steel that is efficient and easy to construct. The structural efficiency score is determined by an equation that considers the weight of the bridge and its deflections, under a randomly located load of 2,500 pounds. The construction cost is determined by an equation that considers the speed with which the bridge may be assembled on the day of competition from size-limited parts over a mock river. In typical years, winning bridges are constructed in about three minutes, weigh approximately 125 pounds, and deflect less than half an inch at mid-span.
Last year’s Steel Bridge Team took first place at the regional competition and qualified for the national competition.